


A Prince By Early Frost

by TheCokeworthCauldrons



Series: The Kingdom of Erised [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bottom Severus Snape, Creature Inheritance, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Despair, Dom Remus Lupin, Drama & Romance, Dream Sex, Dreamsharing, Enemies to Lovers, Exhaustion, Fractured Fairy Tale, Hand Jobs, Healing Sex, Intervention, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, Praise Kink, Psychological Horror, Scent Kink, Sub Severus Snape, Top Remus Lupin, Touch-Starved, Unseelie Court
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2020-07-19 03:21:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 73,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19967203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCokeworthCauldrons/pseuds/TheCokeworthCauldrons
Summary: While preparing his chamber for the Philosopher’s Stone, Severus encounters the dark fae borne by a black glass mirror, buried deep beneath the castle.He is chosen, but unsure by what, until over a year later, when a figure from his dreams takes the Defense position, asking for a favor.





	1. A Prologue: The Mirror of Sterger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First, they met.

_  
Tink, tink….clink!_

“Damn.” 

Severus arranged and rearranged the potions bottles, growing more nauseated by their fumes in the sealed stone room. His conjured fires resisted the clammy cold under Hogwarts as if they in fact occupied a different place entirely, burning unmolested, and similarly, the chilly and oppressive mugginess soaked into the wizard’s robes, heedless of his attempts to undo it. 

“Barney old man,” he growled, swearing as he cracked a flask. “Blast!”

_Challenging, but pray, still solvable,_ Albus had instructed with a twinkle. 

_We’re protecting a priceless treasure,_ he complained, vanishing the potion-laced glass with a snarl. _What use is something surmountable? I say, lure the thief in with illusions, a glamoring mist would do, and rain down acid. Boiling oil! Snakes!_

“Pickle him, or brew a bog, perhaps.” He grinned nastily. “Bury him in leeches the size of dogs. Flay him down to the marrow. Make every bottle poison—no—the fire will—if possible…”

Severus grumbled and cackled as he daydreamed. Well, perhaps only dreamed, as it was already well into the night. He distracted himself with vicious fantasies of a room ensuring gruesome death to those who entered. He’d said as much to the Headmaster: “Needs demand a very painful death.” 

But no, apparently that couldn’t do. Now he struggled, not so much to make his puzzle challenging, or even daunting, as he’d done well in crafting a sinister _looking_ spellfire, even though it had yet to warm its tracts. He bent to recast them. He needed his fires to sear and scorch and crack the hide of anyone foolish enough to brave them unanointed. 

The thought of a tryhard thief, aflame, provided a potent muse. His riddle had wound tidily from his quill when the image struck him up from sleep. 

No, the issue wasn’t the challenge. It was the besting of it. 

_Solvable?_ He wasn’t a sphinx. When he’d pored over his task in the wee hours before breakfast, thinking “solvable,” he cursed Albus’s childish games. 

The start of the school year approached, and all anyone tittered about over meals was _the boy._ It turned his stomach. Surely, these trials were meant for him. Why else would they need child-proofing?

Severus seethed. 

He had tried to state his case: that if there was one thing in this fool’s gold peace to which he was best applied, it was cruelty. They could limit this to one, deadly obstacle. Entice the thief and protect the treasure. Then chuck the precious artifacts back into Gringotts, give the thief’s remains over to the authorities, and return to corralling brats until the dawn of the next war. 

Simple.

_Fwoosh!_

“That’s what I thought,” he sneered, crossing his arms with rangy satisfaction. 

His fires redoubled in height and heat, beating the chilliness from the room. He came over in shivers, ones willfully suppressed so as to enjoy his wizard’s feat without the reminder of his burdensome animality. He wanted to savor. However, despite his starved desire to feel—powerful—he continued to shiver, and with the puzzle set, admitted to the time. 

It couldn’t be earlier than three in the morning. Severus gathered his tools, removing gloves from tingling fingertips, cleaning and returning his droppers and vials to their leather case. The earth overhead muted the midnight stirrings in the castle above him. He only had the clinking glass, the rumbling flames, and his muttering to listen to, deep as he was. 

And so, he heard the click. 

He shouldn’t have, given the loud crackling of the fires. Yet, it hit him clear as daylight, nearly echoing off the walls. It met his ear eerily, as if instead of the true click of the door to the next room unlocking, iron catch ticking against the wood, which is what he saw; as if besides that, he had heard a talented creature impersonate a click, the way some crows and the occasional cat spoke like English, or a lyrebird serenaded in shuddering gears. Not a proper sound, not a natural sound, but more, a word. 

“Click.” 

Hair rose all along his neck. He stepped back, nearly setting his robes alight. Cursing, but unable to look away as the dark wooden door sneaked open, he rummaged in his bag for an extra vial of the returning potion. He downed it, gripping the vial in an ashen fist, raising his wand to the threat. 

The door slowed, regardless of the slant in the room that should have swung it open to bounce against the wall. The old hinges, which Severus knew squeaked, were silent. Filch couldn’t travel this far down to oil them. Again, he realized the mimicry of an opening door had unraveled around the fine details. 

Through the hot, rippling air, he saw the next chamber opened to him. Gooseflesh pimpled his forearms sprouting from his rolled-back sleeves. He spun to leave. 

“Brave little man…,” something slithered. 

Severus froze, insides turned to ice. 

“Are you afraid?,” it mocked. 

He faced away from the gaping doorway, but felt the pressing stare run over his back, like hands. Merlin, he felt hands as soon as the thought occurred to him: long-boned fingers, too long, like each had an extra joint, sweeping over his shoulders, so burning cold and sharp. 

They cradled his elbows, scratched his bare skin—and fixed his sleeves. He daren’t look or move. He only felt the bony digits numb his skin as they brushed it; unroll his sleeves, releasing a heady, humid smell he knew from autumn, many months away, of forest mulch aching for a first snow; and then those fingers buttoned his cuffs, patting them lovingly, like a doting father did his children’s heads.

“Attend me,” whispered a voice, a real voice, with cool breath that bothered a strand of his hair. 

Was this a part of Albus’s trial? What had set it off? Severus had worked in the chambers for hours now. How did he trigger it? 

Severus wondered in the safe recesses of his otherwise panicked mind if he had poisoned himself. Perhaps the fumes from the broken bottle made him hallucinate. He had only spilled the one for moving forward, but again, his potions for his trial were experimental. He’d been called to flex his creativity, and did so. 

He dug in his boot heels. That cool grip made to turn him around. It chuckled. 

“Leave then,” it permitted, and ashamed to need unleashing, Severus fled from the chamber, leaving his tools behind. 

He returned for his things in the morning, and found the door to the last chamber soundly locked. He even tested the handle, after a moment. The ancient hinges squeaked, and the door itself didn’t budge.

Severus stared at the Headmaster across the shining, oak desk. Bobbles whirred and puffed pastel smoke. He leaned back in the hardback chair, gaze drawn to nest of sparrows growing on the sill outside the casement window. A mother bird fed her young, dipping into each of their shockingly too wide mouths.

“...is doing well and should end his stay in the Infirmary this afternoon, well in time for the feast.”

The potion master realized he’d been expected to answer, and grunted, still rubbing a stained finger along the thinned line of his lips. Silence rambled on, and he nodded this time, gesturing absently. 

“Are you well, Severus?,” Albus asked. He could hear the crinkle in his silvery brow.

“Mn. I suppose that will be all?” He unfolded, feeling the groan in his joints. 

His iron hinges, all silenced by flesh, whined against the bone. He hadn’t moved in minutes, maybe over an hour. What had been the news? Potter and friends survived. Remnants of the Dark Lord were confirmed. Quirrell’s ashes were scooped from the last chamber. 

The mirror Albus had never let cross his spy’s path was now removed. 

“If I’m no longer needed, I’ll be in my quarters.” 

Standing proved perilous as the stifled blood surged down to his cold feet, making him stumble. He refused aide, righting himself and used the embarrassment to quicken his pace. He drove out of the office without another word, flew down the spiral staircase, and menaced the halls, lids hung low, needing the night. 

The descent beckoned. He’d waited until past midnight to creep from the dungeons to the third floor corridor, down the trap door so purportedly sealed, and through the vacuous trials and their litter; and he arrived. His trial room became a freezer, in which he shuddered, teeth chattering as an unnatural frost encrusted the irregular walls. 

_It’s a magic bloody castle,_ he reminded himself, spelling on a cloak from the dust and ash. 

As if to prove a point, he belted out a warming charm, which rounded the frosted corners, fluttered—and died. No warmth to speak of: and Albus’s door, no more vanished than the man’s saying so had been comforting, eased open noiselessly, and stayed, waving him into the shadowed chamber beyond. 

“There you are. It’s been months,” it snickered. “ _Now_ may we speak?” 

Fear shot through him, no matter how prepared he’d been to deny it. He hadn’t thought the voice real, going so long avoiding the final room. His feet carried him forward, despite his smothered protests. He couldn’t voice them, but he knew, from the groping silence, that the chamber could hear his stricken cries. 

_The Dark Lord!,_ his mind flashed with klaxons and red strobes. _He’s still at Hogwarts!_

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m more than a wisp, poison princeling. I say, attend me! I grow weary of waiting.” 

The force willing him inside acted petulantly, jerking him over the threshold, then slinking away, pulling the door shut behind him. He bridled at the definitive clang of iron bolts. He raged at being trapped. 

“Release me at once!,” he shouted, turning on the door, wand aloft, ready to rip it from the frame if he had to. 

The chamber met him with swirling, sparkling fog the silver of spider silk and moonlight. He panted in the dewy scent of reddening leaves in early November, evoked by the crunch underfoot as he tramped, frantic, through the once underground room. 

He felt cool breeze and wondered if he’d been transported outside. Every way he looked, he saw only lengthy dark, pale points like stars, and the fog thick enough to cover his boots. Soon all of him from the knees down belonged to that thick, cumulus carpet hiding the woods. 

“See, no castle. Isn’t this better than that moldering eyesore?,” the voice needled. 

“I like the mold,” he bit back, wincing. There came a scrape like metal on stone, and the voice tittered. 

“I suppose you do. Come closer.” 

“No.” He tried to hold still and again, the foreign will pushed him, the ground rolling under him like sand slipping in an ebbing tide. “Stop this!”

“Always so difficult, Severus Snape. Isn’t it tedious? Ah, but then, what else do you have besides difficulty and purpose?”

Soft before, now the voice came on stronger, enough for Severus to gauge its character. Certainly, unlike the Dark Lord’s high, sadistic hiss, this spoke deeply, sonorous, like a spirit professing from the black throat of a cave. 

“Show yourself! Fight me!,” he challenged, battling for calm. Finally, he was allowed to stop. He shook, sweating through his shirt and growing too cold with frightening quickness. He gagged at the softness of rotting leaves and shouted, feeling sick. 

“Show yourself, you bastard! What are you!?” 

“‘Show yourself, you bastard! What are you!?’,” volleyed his own voice from the dark in perfect cadence, everywhere that surrounded him ringing with it. He sounded afraid. 

Severus was furious. He shot a curse into the fog, carving a path through it that glowed red as a cut vein before fizzing out.

No—he squinted after it, staggering in its wake. The spell didn’t fizzle. It sunk over an unmarked horizon in the void, zipping over a blind curve and vanishing to the other side of a tiny, peopleless globe. 

Just as he began to think himself dreaming, he saw, for the first time, some signs of life. A tall man appeared, dressed in charcoal grey robes, approaching with a hunched, lurching gait, as if exhausted. Severus stalked toward him, loosing another curse with crooked teeth bared, when the man did the same, dodging just as he—. 

“A mirror,” he gasped, affronted. 

He fell into a canter to meet with—himself, kissed and cornered in a sheen of distress. The mirror had no frame, and was of stunningly black glass, the light reflected in it emanating from the low, glittering clouds. The swirl behind him curled indistinguishably from the fog in front of him, giving him the alien sensation of standing before his own twin. 

_This must be Dumbledore’s doing,_ he decided. _Every bit of this is leagues too pretty for the Dark Lord. And this—._

He gestured at his own reflection, believing it just the kind of symbolic theatrics to suit the old man. A year at odds with the Potter boy and now Albus wanted him to reflect. 

Poignant garbage. He’d have none of it.

“Severus—.”

“Shut up,” he snipped at the mirror.

It thought itself ominous to use the image of his own mouth to speak. He looked around himself for an exit, glad to be profoundly unimpressed. He regained enough composure to straighten his shoulders and enjoy the prodigal readiness of his spine.

“You think me a construction of your masters, when I’ve come to grant your every wish?” 

“Hmph. And what wishes are those?”

“Power and self-possession. Status—.”

He sucked his teeth, irritated. “Yes, yes, that, and glory and recognition. I’ve heard it all before. Enough cheap tricks. I’ve slugs to gut, which sounds an altogether better use of my time, don’t you agree.” 

“Heard it all, have you?” 

He flinched, suffering a twinge in his left arm. He sighed and rubbed it through his sleeve, annoyed by his gullibility, “Can’t believe I’ve wasted the night down here.”

His reflection’s eyes were black as his, but didn’t shine, instead bore holes into its face harboring pinpricks of venomous green. It repulsed him. His strange double nodded once, solemnly, dropping its smirking tone and suddenly shrinking, forcing Severus back. 

There in the fog stood Severus as a boy, scrawny and drowning in his father’s coat, layered over his mother’s thrice-darned blouse. He ogled the child, astonished that Albus would go so far. He’d never even seen Severus this way, as it did nothing to inform on his loyalty. Simply reflecting back a ragamuffin boy told Severus that the illusion channeled his own memories. 

He trembled, violated. 

“Are you so avidly courted that you know every treasure?,” his child self rumbled in a grown man’s voice. “Strange. You’ve never owned them. Do you have power? Perhaps over children. Do you have yourself fully in pocket, a man so proud as you—are you unbent? Only hardly, and beneath that, hardly at all. Isn’t that so?”

“I’m leaving,” he hissed, but found himself rooted to the spot, and not by the foreign will, although he’d never admit as much if asked. 

No, he found himself petrified with doubt and mortal terror and regret, being read his own thoughts. And the mirror knew—it knew everything. 

“I can give you that, Severus. I can give you treasure.” 

“What are you!?”

“A prince, like you, though...arisen,” the child self purred, ponderous.

The reflection paced backwards into the swallowing dark and Severus, afraid for himself, reached out to grab him, only to smack glass. He shook and felt the mirror, searching for its edge. He’d turn it over, he swore. He’d smash it!

“Do you know every treasure?,” it repeated. 

“Stop this!,” he cried, slick fingers fumbling. Only glass, no matter how far he stretched his arms, almost as if to embrace the image. He felt only the mirror and the softness of the leaves through his soles.

“Every treasure? Every treasure? Every treasure? Every treasure? Every treasure?,” it doubted, voice quieter with each repetition.

“Even love?” 

Severus fell to his knees, weak as a day old fawn. The anger dissipated, leaving him in despair. Trailing down into the top edge of his vision, like bloody vines, he saw tendrils of ash-caked, copper hair. 

He never saw her dead. But he smelled her perfume, a lemony tang, wafting from the fog. 

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t do this…” 

“Do you regret your choices?,” the mirror goaded. 

He hesitated, and then nodded feebly. 

“Do you regret your loyalties? Your many masters, who use your weaknesses against you? Who reap tough labors from the grave of your withered heart?”

“What do you want,” Severus rasped, covering his eyes. This was a dream, a long and terrible dream. He would wake, eventually. He had to. 

“I want whatever you want. I’m drawn to your regrets, those gorgeous, festering wounds you harbor in your spirit. And what are regrets, if not dying desires?

I want what you want, Severus.”

The child self returned, from what he could tell by the folds of floral-patterned polyester flicking into his peripheral. He looked up and the mirror frowned. 

“Stop using my damn face! You can’t be m-me,” he wheezed, glowering, fog pouring into his aching lungs. 

“Why not?” The boy then disappeared into the silver and shadows, leaving Severus frowning at his actual, pathetic self. 

“Every treasure,” repeated the baritone, “even love?” 

The too-long hands resolved from the nothing and lowered over him. He jolted around to see his attacker, finding no one in the questionably real world. When he looked back, the hands had formed a circlet of adjoining thumbs and forefingers, inverted onto his head so the other digits stretched skyward in a cage of overabundant knuckles. 

He watched, breathless, as he was crowned in yellowed claws that tickled the dark from atop sallow, green-veined fingers. He stared, heart thudding, then squeezed his eyes shut again. There shimmered more red hair in the infinite glass. 

“Is loyalty enough to sustain you?,” it asked mournfully. “Forever, at that? Brave little man, but how long is always?

“‘Look at me,’” again in his voice, but Severus didn’t recognize it perfectly. It could’ve been him, or it might have been his father. It sounded older than his thirty-two years.

Regardless, it gurgled and gasped and faded to quiet. 

He squeezed his eyes tighter, feeling ridiculously small. He wanted to go home, wherever he could find it. He wanted out. 

“I could feed on your dead wants all night. Look up.”

He did, tear-streaked and glaring. 

“ _Bombarda_!” And as he half-expected, his spell hurtled into the other world, out and over the curve. The mirror, or portal, was untouched.

“What do you _want_ from me!?,” Severus wailed.

“Professor Snape!” 

He knelt there, patchy with dust, robes ground into the cold, worn stones. Severus blinked blearily at the open door ushering in the Headmaster’s blurry form, rejecting his skinny seeking hands and dragging himself to stand. 

The spell had mostly broken. He was free now. The young man smeared a sleeve across his face, unwittingly streaking it with grime. 

“Severus, what…,” Albus pressed, searching his face, looking him over. “Can you explain what’s happened to you this night? How were you even able to come by these chambers?”

“I’m finished with your bloody tricks!,” he spat, voice cracking. He felt whipped, not for the first time, but surely the last. He still smelled detritus and lemon perfume. “If you can’t decide now that I’m loyal to you, then fuck it! Forget it! I’ve failed you!

“I’ll pack my rooms tonight, and you’ll never hear from me, or see me—.”

“Severus, I don’t understand—.”

He shoved past the old wizard and barked behind him as he stormed off, “Don’t you _dare_ follow me!” 

Fortunately, Albus didn’t try him. He didn’t know his last recourse should he’d done. Instead of worrying if he’d cost himself his job, he went to his quarters. The portrait to his apartment slipped closed, insulating him from the horrors below even him. 

He drifted into an armchair, his throbbing head floating high above his body, and slept for what felt like days, what felt like weeks, like seasons. 

_Severus had a dream as soft as the forest floor. In it, rough and well-washed hands held his face, bringing along the bitter sweetness of dark chocolate. He drank water, cool and crisp, as if straight from a mountain stream. And he cried into those calloused palms, feeling so lashed, so beaten and tired._

_He cried and felt newer, sobbing readily into that caring grip._

_“Every treasure, Severus, even love. Just as promised.”_

He woke with a grubby face crusted with filth, gritty from dried tears. He hacked loudly, clearing his sob-clogged throat, and washed his face in a fury of spilled water and unclean rags, then slogging to his office to grade exams. 

The wizard didn’t see his reflection linger in the pool in the sink basin. The him he left grew an indulgent smile, a crown of hands, and the infinite star-littered sky. Then it walked away like the subject of a portrait, returning the view of the sparse, untidy bathroom to the water’s trembling surface. 

* * *

**August 17th, 1993**

Severus hiked the spiral to Dumbledore’s office, meandering, lost in thought, just as he pleased. Since last year, he had floated along in a fog, sometimes vexed enough to bite, sometimes limp of spirit, despondent in every duty. 

He taught classes with the recipe on the board and his head down in a book, scanning the same lines on the same page, absorbing none of it, simply hearing the crunching of leaves and smelling the lemon haze.

And then a clumsy brat would drop something, melt a cauldron, smash a vial, and he would snap back to reality so savagely, assaulted by stinks and squelches and dozens of vapid faces, that he’d have to physically restrain himself from leaping across his desk and tearing into them. 

He would often grip the armrests of his chair, muscles taut to aching, and hurl invectives that even shocked him as they struck each other child with piercing precision. And like a trapped wild animal shaking to destroy them, he would storm from the classroom, slamming his office door behind him, and pace the confines of the chamber, stomping hard enough to rattle the still, unblinking specimens in their dusty jars. 

He’d stalk to and fro like a caged beast until the class time ran out. Then he would leave to collect their sad attempts at potions before banishing them to the halls. Severus didn’t think he registered a student’s face outside of Potter’s in months. The rest were ghosts.

The mandrakes and their squealing roots boasted more reality. 

He supposed the meeting with Dumbledore was about that. Severus could believe he’d been negligent. Spiteful, more than expected. Coming loose.

“Come in, Professor Snape. Thank you for joining us.”

Severus came to, standing in the doorway. He folded his hands behind his back and nodded, once, befuddled. His eyes hopped around the eccentric office, worsening his confusion until he saw the one new detail: a shabby man in Severus’s seat. He...knew him…

Mind sharpening with a clash that threw off sparks, he sneered: 

“Come begging for scraps, Lupin?” Those narrow, patched shoulders twitched. 

“Professor,” Dumbledore admonished. Severus scowled at his paternalistic tone, and crossed his arms. 

“Mister Lupin has just been hired to the Defense position, and we’re happy to welcome him aboard,” explained with a pointed opening of his snow-capped expression. 

“‘We’re’ most certainly not. Headmaster, you plan to welcome a _beast_ into the school? Again? And if he succeeds in mauling a student this time—!”

“That is quite enough. We all have the same concerns and, in point of fact, I’ve called you here to make a humble request—.”

Severus snorted. Humble.

Albus sighed, radiating disappointment. The room stilled, even the gossiping portraits in their frames enraptured by the tension. Only the werewolf was foolish enough to twist in his seat and stare at Severus with guarded, amber yellow eyes. 

The potions master could spit acid. 

“Severus,” he was plied oh-so-patiently. “Remus will be teaching with us starting September. As our resident potions master, it would be in tremendous service to the school if you provided our new professor a regular supply of the Wolfsbane Potion, to help manage his condition.”

“No.” 

“I ask that you reconsider. You’ll have a budget for supplies and any specialized tools, of course, as well as compensation for the additional brewing time, delivery—.”

“And my discretion?” He shivered with rage. He’d need the Wolfsbane for himself, the way his skin tightened, the way he nearly lunged from the confines of his body and set upon the room. Keeping Lupin’s secrets again, was he?

“No,” he repeated, teeth clenched. He grunted the word, like he’d been punched. 

He would have to do it. He didn’t have a choice. And those yellow eyes stared, and stared, hardly blinking. 

“I know...Snape, I know there’s no love lost between us. But your help would mean more than I could ever hope to say.”

Severus scoffed, “ _Are_ you begging? Perhaps then I might take pity on you.” 

_You'll do it anyway,_ said a voice from his dreams, and when he gasped, his breath clouded despite the boxed-in summer warmth. 

He glanced at Albus, wondering if the old man had seen it. He chilled at the lack of twinkle in the clear blue eyes, the unsure crease in his mask, the tiny frown. Yes, that had been real. It wasn’t his imagination. 

_I’m as real as you are,_ hummed the voice. _See?_

He jumped at the flapping of a sparrow from off the window sill. It flew dizzily into the distance, thrashing and spraying feathers, netted in a startling madness that launched it from its perch. Then it evened out, settled into a breeze, and went beautifully. 

Its dark little body disappeared against the black shape of the Forbidden Forest. The window panes tinkled, lacing with ice. The three men watched this, puffing white clouds, making noises about an early fall, except Severus, who let slip a withering, “Well.”

Lupin stood on occasion, as apparently the potions master had agreed to help. He offered his hand, which Severus didn’t take and only looked down at, sneering at those fingers, wane and patterned with scars. It looked rough, this hand, like the wool for scrubbing his cast iron. It reminded him of the mill workers’ hands from Cokeworth, those being machine-bitten, dry and lunch meat cologned. 

But when Severus refused to shake it and the offer pulled away, it upset a waft from the man’s tired robes like soap and aftershave—and bitter chocolate, crisp in the wintered air. 

“I hope we’ll work well together,” Lupin mumbled. 

_“Every treasure,”_ murmured Severus’s dreams. 

Wrangling every nerve to stride away, jaw tight, head held high, he left Dumbledore’s office and returned to his quarters. Severus made it partway to the dungeons, before running, hunted by shadows.

Deep under the hill Hogwarts championed, a minute hand on an old timepiece ticked on past the untolled eleventh hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	2. Febrility of the Troubled Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To heat, unbidden

Remus’s aches woke him with a full-body throb. He peeled his eyelids open, eyes rolling down from his head, unveiling pupils wide and black. He laid their empty gaze against the velvet bed curtain, bestially seeking comfort. 

He stared at the _dark_ and _soft_ , while his thready gold irises, emboldened with a new day, overtook the void he nursed, pushed it back, and his eyes, once resembling arctic ice cut through to the deep dark sea, repossessed a weary, olive soul. 

His deep breaths shallowed, like a diver nearing the surface. 

A minute passed, then two, while the single, naked bulb flickered on in his head. Real thoughts came, eventually. They marched feebly into his mind, finally escaping the blank, dappled white of the last moon. He reached out with his calloused fingers, twiddled them in the stuffy air, and traced the canopy’s folds. 

_I guess I’ve been dreaming all this time._ He stewed a moment. Of course he’d been dreaming. Some of the things he’d felt...

_Incorporeal, Remus trekked through midnight dark meadows where night terrors like wildflowers towered over him, covering those hard traveling scraps of his human mind with the rustle of tall grass; and in the floral hay, the wolf rested in pollen and dry, broken stems, detritus masking the great mound of it._

_His beliefs and griefs and puzzled wants tiptoed past the rumbling hill where the curse slept fitfully, and found Remus’s body in its bed, just as fitful, and met it some minutes after he woke, his thinking muddy and panting, and all of him quietly relieved to see he’d come, even if exhausted by his pilgrimage._

Remus could think again, and felt it a blessing. A mixed blessing, but such were all his good things—it’d hardly bother him. 

_Soaking wet, shaking to pieces..._ were the next gauzy thoughts to return. They were snatches of his last dream, which he suspected featured the fugitive, Sirius Black. 

He tried to sit up. “Ah! Ahh, m—shit!”

He fell back against the pillows, shaking, hands fisted in the sheets. His legs were on fire. He whined, begging his knees to bend around the right way. He needed another hour before he could brave walking. The ligaments in his knees were still knitting together. Those and the tendons were usually last to heal. 

Remus sighed tearily, missing the blankness. But at least he wasn’t in a rush this time. He could stand to be a little patient. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried willing himself back to sleep.

He found moderate success, but stirred again a little later. 

_Hot tears ran over his hands..._

While he listed groggily, a stark image echoed out over his other embryonic thoughts: of pulling a tall, dark-headed man out of freezing water, fumbling for warmth in his sodden robes, terrified for a heartbeat.

This took a startling hold in him, given all the new space for his arthritic mind to stretch in. He expected the one dream to wick away, forgotten, but it held on. 

Remus fought a hand to his face to scratch his lashes. 

_Not Sirius again?_ Since the man’s escape, he dreamed of him on and off: that he’d pulled him out of the grey North Sea surrounding Azkaban, that he shook him till his teeth rattled, till his prison rags tore, screaming, “Why!?,” so loudly he shocked the shushing from the waves. 

_Sharps fingers digging into his thighs...heat...numbing water sizzling off his bare shoulders...pouring steam...his hand on a chest, coaxing the knocking heart harder, harder under his palm...a pleased hum...a shudder..._

_I never saw his face,_ he mused. His dreams these last months were almost exclusively his old friends’ faces. 

Sometimes he saw Black’s thick eyebrows raise, his round “oh,” of surprise when Remus threw him back in the water. Sirius looked younger in those dreams, like how Remus knew him. It made him easier to fling by his shackles. 

Then Remus would shrink, and the young werewolf would watch stoically from the beach. He would wait in his sea-salted school robes, holding himself close while the other boy choked on the surf, jerked under, sunk. And it’d be peaceful after.

He liked standing on the hoary shore, alone except for a few crying gulls. He liked his neglected dingy, creaking as it bobbed gently, tied to his waist. The unmanned life boat floated at the end of a long rope, never long enough to reach the convict. Once Sirius drowned, Remus let the dingy tug him into the tide. 

Remus thought on it wistfully. He imagined sailing away while Sirius Black pickled in the brine below. 

_It’s ridiculous, and, you know...sick._ He cast about for an excuse, then remembered it was only him there, and shrugged. And winced, his shoulder grinding in the socket, but the pain faded quickly. 

_We all taught him to float in the Lake, anyway. He probably swims better than me._

Regardless, that last night’s dream was different. It hadn’t actually happened, the sex—or well, Remus didn’t think it could’ve, not without him knowing. But it felt as real as he did, and easily moreso. It could’ve been that his anger and warbling grief finally transformed, and in this false memory, he saved the man and, so overcome by them both surviving, he delved into him, melting and smooth as a hot knife in butter. 

He was on top of and around and in—but he’d never—not with Sirius. And there was pain between them, but it wasn’t his, not in the moment. Still, a tall, thin, dark-haired man, cracked open and raw: who else could it be?

_The sharp chin on the heels of his hands...Remus beginning where their feverish skin met..._

A new generation of thoughts poured into him, this one fuller for the previous’ success. He remembered the curve of the other man’s sweaty back, and his hand slipping to grab hold of rolling hips, thinking he could feed them both, and arching, a perfect lick of fire from toe tip to crown.

A hot flush came over his body, and in a snap, he was wholly a man again, like the full moon never happened. 

“Merlin, Moony,” he groaned, throwing back the musty quilt. He winced at his rigid knees and ground a knuckle into his nose bridge, appalled. He was hard.

“Don’t be disgusting.”

Remus stood in front of the vanity mirror, naked except for his ruff of brown hairs and his tartan of dull, ropey scars. 

_”_ There you are,” he huffed, touching his face: fever-bright eyes, weighed down by blue-black bags and red, blotchy skin. 

The skin didn’t sit right, hanging a bit too loosely from the bones. Remus massaged his cheeks mournfully. It took a month of castle feasts to put on any weight. He couldn’t remember when he last had a bit of fat to lose, and in a wink, the change piddled it away.

Although, from what he remembered, he bore his hunger this last moon better than he ever had before. If sacrificing size meant managing his gruesome appetite...

_Breakfast today,_ he decided, finished rehanging his face. _And_ _I’ll tell Albus, too, that it’s back to classes._

Remus glanced down at his body and suffered a twinge of self-consciousness. Would his robes even fit? He’d just invested in a new set the other week. Remus pinched the squishy muscle stretching over his ribs and jolted. Something stung him. It wasn’t a bruise. 

_Shuddering breaths...nails skating down his sides, spurring him on…a sweet burning..._

“Gods, that’s enough!” He gave the mirror his back, stealing back once to catch the lively pink on his otherwise tragic cheeks. Well, _some_ color suited him. Then he dithered away from the whole thing, choked, outraged. 

He banged his wrist on the sink in his fluster and hissed.

“Ack, damn! _Fuck._ Fuck you!”

He lost a wash of feeling from his thumb up to his elbow. The werewolf sucked his teeth and swore again. Those nerves prickling awake again would be hell. 

_Of all the things to work perfectly fine, it’s my prick. Not a knee or a bloody elbow._ Remus felt unfixably grubby, beastly, tipping toward depressed. What was wrong with him, fixating this way? 

_Black killed our friends, and a dozen others. Now he’s after a defenseless, teenage boy. I can’t be that bloody soulless, can I?_ He hunched into the shower and threw on the water, welcoming the shock of cold. 

_I’ll sell this useless body to science. They get it to work? Good on them._

Eventually, the shower quelled his aches. He panted, shivering, and adjusted the spray, the pipes struggling to heat the water. Soon, the spray did its job and relaxed his snarled muscles. 

Back loosening, Remus straightened to his most sparing height and reached for his rag. He worked the last sliver of soap in the dish into a watery lather and washed carefully, inhaling artificial clean linen and steam, scrubbing down his sleep-crusted parts and giving cursory attention to his cock. 

It hung innocently now, but he skirted over any place he found too excitable, nonetheless. It’d undoubtedly broken his trust. 

He’d never dreamed of Sirius like that before—well, for a stint back in school, yes, but not since he was sixteen. And while he grieved his friends on sunny days in his regular life, he tried to think of that traitor sparingly for how soundly he’d shattered Remus’s world.

Black was a murderer, who made James Potter his whole life, up to and including destroying him. He had no place in a sickbed fantasy.

Remus rinsed and squeaked off the water. He stepped onto a hand towel gone an aspiring shade of not-white. Using a larger towel to dry off—burgundy with braided embroidery, and monogrammed, the castle’s touch—then he set his body to rights: stretching his stiff toes, flexing his fingers, stretching his back. The last spasmed and he staggered, winded, against the sink. 

“H—almost,” he wheezed, holding a deep, bracing breath and cracking his neck. 

The bones snapped so loudly, he fell back, dropping his towel and grabbing his head, sure it would roll off a broken neck. Then he laughed shakily, “Idiot,” and eased his right ear down to his hitched shoulder, breathing into the stretch. He repeated this on the other side, more tenderly. 

When he lifted his head, revealing his obviously intact neck to the dewy mirror, he saw a rosy bruise under his jaw, where the skin felt almost raw. He pressed it, confused, and a shiver ran down to his toes.

_Is that…_ Remus half-grinned, incredulous. He didn’t know what he did to himself in his sleep, and was willing not to ask. 

_It has to be a bruise._ Remus would need to cover it up.

He twisted to see the handful of raised welts on his side. They trailed bright pink across his sloping ribs, over his hips toward the small of his back. He must’ve clawed at his clothes during his dream, in a bout of—no. 

He immediately craved another shower. 

He went to change, paying a last mind to his ravaged and ravished self. 

_His hand squeezing a gasping throat...thrilling, chilling wet hair...arching..._

_Does Snape know this is a side effect? Should I say something next time he brings—?_

And then Remus snorted, realizing what he’d been thinking, and pitched that thought into the sea faster than he’d done his agonies. Imagine, describing such a mortifying problem to Snape. The potions master had already told Remus the Wolfsbane would leave him impotent—savored it, even. 

_“Woe unto you, Lupin, for the farmers’ flock is blessed. You’ll be castrated as long as you’re medicated, since no saint has thought to address the potion’s symptoms. So, in the vile case that Black’s escape inspires any_ impassioned _reunions: think again.”_

Then Snape whipped out an anatomical sketch and started crossing off parts. He slashed a dripping red “X” between the legs, the ink still wet when he waggled it under the werewolf’s nose. Albus had excused himself—from his own office, mind—but there it was. 

Remus had meant to bitterly remind the man that Black had betrayed every friend he had left in the world—but Snape already knew that. He hadn’t any pity for friendless outcasts. Besides, Remus thought, if he could overcome his terminal fatigue and loneliness and paralyzing shame for one immoral quickie, it wouldn’t be any of Snape’s concern. 

But the change loomed, and the potion was brewing, so he said nothing of it, nor would he ever, if he were honest. The thought of extricating himself from that disaster of a conversation kept him cordial. 

_“The size of the ‘X’ is flattering, Snape,”_ he smiled instead. “ _I always do appreciate your support.”_

He did privately swear that, should a miracle ever present itself, he’d self-righteously fuck his next date over, under, and on Snape’s desk. He imagined curled toes kicking over the inkwell, staining all his evilest books. Knickers slingshotting over specimen jars. His tattiest briefs dangling from the sconce. The git deserved it. 

_You’d never,_ he ribbed himself, distractedly brushing his teeth. He spat, glancing over the foam for blood: none this time. 

_Somebody should_ , _though. Sirius would._ He stopped grinning, stopped brushing, then resumed hurriedly, prank shoved aside.

Severus Snape was a dung bomb at the dinner table: perpetually unpleasant, but best left unexploded. Remus had decent luck with acting polite. He stayed so far out of the man’s periphery that it’d be shameful to chase Remus down. Of course, Snape didn’t have proper shame—he wasn’t built with so many normal parts. He did, however, have a cat’s mind: erratic and easily bored. 

If Remus wandered far and gave little, Snape could be distracted by some unsuspecting teen. Especially if the werewolf surrounded himself with eager students, all of them enjoying silly antics and simple creatures. All that youthful fun deterred Snape like a cross did vampires, banishing him back to this clammy cave. 

Still, Remus reluctantly kept a place in the wizard’s, shriveled, sadistic little heart. He only seemed satisfied when Remus was unhappy.

Should he share, “By the way, your potion fortifies more than minds,” Snape would never help him. Not only that, he’d put out an ad in the morning Prophet: “Local Werewolf Is Potions Pawing Pervert!” He’d announce it from the highest tower, and march it down to the deepest trench for the scuttling bugs to gasp at. 

It was only a wet dream, if a disturbing one. Remus would surely survive keeping it to himself. 

His teaching robes covered a lot—not so much his skinniness, but at least all his strange marks. Remus buttoned his shirt collar higher than he usually wore it to cover the bruise. He tucked in his shirttails, enjoying the crisp cotton, when his stomach eked out a timid growl. Right, it’d been a day since his last meal.

“Yes, got it in one,” said the man, patting his gut indulgently. He combed his hair from his face, and left for breakfast. He closed his chamber portrait a bit too hastily, rattling the elderly painted Romans arguing around a pit fire. They harrumphed, fumbling with their lopsided cherry laurels and fixing the pins on their togas.

“Ho, mind your betters!,” one senator cried, righting the folds of his cape. “This day and age, what a travesty! For there to be no—!”

“Sorry,” Remus smiled softly, not hearing the rest. He only paused for a moment to nod along before taking on the moving stairs mentally, preparing for the climb down. When he felt called to apologize again, he was already at the top of his first flight. 

“Oh, sorry,” he said, more sincerely, to no one. He seemed to have walked off mid-lecture. 

His stomach complained again, almost continuously until he was halfway down the stairs. Remus hurried as best he could, racing nausea, thinking nothing else of the lapse. He wanted to eat something before he was too sick to keep it down.

“Careful in the halls!”

A pair of first years—Hufflepuffs by their crests—tripped to a stop and ogled him. He hadn’t said anything. A passing prefect had actually shouted after the kids before returning to her conversation, but he was made to take credit. He played at stern, tutting and wagging his finger. 

“Very dangerous, you two. Now what if you tripped? Who would ever want to miss class, and why, I can’t even—spend the day eating candy in the Infirmary? No one on Earth!”

He expected they’d see he was hamming, and threw them another exaggerated wag. But standing so much taller than two eleven year olds, the pair missed the joke in it and just waved at Remus bashfully. 

“Sorry, sir,” one girl peeped, sounding pitiful.

He felt joke shy now until the two ran off, moving not a half step slower. They sprinted and missed the curb down into a courtyard, sprawling out on the yellowing grass.

They landed arse over kettle, one shoe flown off, it’s owner spitting out dirt. 

They bounced up the way rubber kids tend to do, squealing to find their knees scuff free. The Defense professor strolled past, wand sliding back into his sleeve. 

_Quick on the draw, old man,_ Remus commended himself. 

There had been after-moons upwards of a week of just muddled thoughts, rehousing joints, and pleading with landlords; limping back to whatever cheap rental he’d fished out of back pages; packing old shopping bags at one in the morning, to shrink and take on his way.

Three days out and he was already a decent wizard. Remus stepped aside to let a gaggle of fourth years pass. 

“Good morning, Professor Lupin,” they greeted, smiling.

“Morning,” he returned with a warm smile of his own. Then he blinked and lost his footing, blindsided by a burst of _bonhomie_. He caught himself on a startled Ravenclaw. 

“Oof, no, that’s on me. Here you are,” and he hurried to pick up her book, laughing awkwardly. 

As he waved them along, he recalled some of the rickety, blue-haired women menacing him for his rent, toting wands and bats and hulking grandsons. There was a gang of landlords somewhere, maybe a hazy, purple bar down Knockturn. They were chomping down on soggy cigars, waving his skimped bills in meaty, brass-knuckled fists.

“Professor _who?_ _That_ mooch? Who’d go and hire him!?”

Where was he now? Not smuggling his own things in his schoolboy chest, dodging men with gritted, gold teeth. Now, Remus wove through crowds of his own students on the way to a hearty meal, which, as the halls filled, he realized he may have missed. 

He felt better. Maybe because he smelled eggs and fried tomatoes and buttered toast in the traffic. Maybe because, despite his first night spent locked in an office, sleeping curled under his desk, keening with the crystal-clear terror of being a man in a wolf's burning body, he felt human.

Either way, he continued toward the Great Hall carrying his hands in his pockets. Breakfast was still worth trying. His stomach had sat empty for too long, and he aimed to coax it from its desperate huddle. 

_Christ, and to talk with other adults, and about schoolwork at that._ No due dates except for grades, papers, and lesson plans. The lights stayed on whether he worried or not, and if they didn’t, it was no fault of his. 

“Hullo, Professor.”

“Hm, hello,” he said over his shoulder, brushing past a knee-high flounce of curls.

He greeted Aurora Sinistra as he passed her and Filch at odds, wrestling with a tarnished telescope. She ignored Remus, which suited him just as well. 

The full felt a world away. He moved along, no scarier than a Boggart, less so than a Dementor, or the threat of Sirius Black—who he would forget till another while. The only faces greying instead of greeting him were as many as Snape could pull before storming off, the last drop of sucked joy smeared in his crumpled napkin. 

Besides that, no outcry, no pitchforks, no “can’t abide by your kind.” Yes, he felt better. In fact, he felt a bit at home. 

His legs stayed under him, sore but sure, save a buckled knee or a creaky ankle. He went, lengthening his stride, and finally arrived to the double doors feeding students into the hall. 

He squeezed through, righting a few jostled children and sneaking a peek around. Some students clung in clumps to the long House tables, inhaling scrambled eggs and guzzling down milk and juice from their sloshing battered goblets. 

Fred Weasley drank straight from a jug, to Lee Jordan cheering him on. The frequent sticky fingers stuck cloth napkins to crinkled black robes. Excited chatter filled the chamber, and made for the start of a proper school day. 

_Clean bed, steady work,_ he thought, embarrassed by the change from half-dead to almost sprightly. _And I’ll be damned if that potion doesn’t taste like sewage, plus whatever else it’s up to—but you really can’t beat the results._

Spiteful prick though Snape was, Remus could only thank the potions master for his skill. He couldn’t complain, although the surly man did provably sicken him every month—as Remus did him with his every breath, so assured in all of Snape’s. Regardless, he had a reprieve from his meager living—not a perfect peace, but closest to. 

Thank Merlin Remus could teach. 

Thinking of Dumbledore and the gratitudes one man could accrue, he found him presiding, bright beard and star-spangled robes impressing the morning light. Even this late into breakfast, the High Table had only shed a few of its faculty, mainly that captivatingly spotty Sybil Trelawney, Flitwick, and Minerva, lecturing a couple nearby. 

And there, fastened to the headmaster’s left, simmered Remus’s reluctant saving grace. His entrance earned him stunning glare from those beetle-black eyes. It shocked him, as most mornings Snape made do with a few snide remarks and, otherwise, ignored him as one did a persistent stench: nose wrinkled, face pinched, lip curled. 

So the violent jerk of the dark wizard’s head gave Remus pause as he shuffled into the hall. He hesitated, eyebrows raised. As he came closer, Snape sat up, buttoned to the chin in pilly black. He scraped his stringy hair back against his skull, and neglected to shave, apparently. Today he sported his hooked, peregrine sneer and a patchy five o’ clock shadow. 

He looked villainous, as if this marked the day of his grand reckoning. Remus wondered if he should beat feet. He could always skip to his first class and visit the kitchens later. However, his stomach dissented, rolling into his back. He weighed his options: food or—no, food. 

_What can he do? Poison me?,_ he quipped internally, pushing ahead. He paused at a shout from a bench he carried past. 

“What’re they doing?”

“I dunno. Oi, somebody! Get a prefect!”

He looked around at the crowd of students to find them loitering by the doors. Those departing turned, laughing or murmuring worriedly, before slowly pushing back into the Great Hall. 

At first, he thought they’d noticed the stand off between the two professors, and were gathering round, expecting a duel. However, he followed their whispers and pointing fingers, and looked up, joining the other upturned eyes aimed, not at the teachers, but at the ceiling. 

Hogwarts’s enchanted ceiling reflected the overcast skies outside, grey with streams of pale light and a flat coin for a sun. A giant storm cloud shivered across it, approaching them all from the south. It trembled ominously, and the space around it buzzed with building static. It floated overhead and the crowd surged, in awe of its growing size.

Then it exploded in noise—cawing, squawking—and began to snow. Feathers, first; and riding those, fell drops of blood. 

The cloud burst open and revealed a massive frenzy of owls. Greys and muted browns that from so high up appeared to be storm clouds were actually raptors tearing into each other, screaming, flashing talons and stabbing beaks and plucked bellies. Remus reeled, stumbling away into the children clogging the hall. 

“Ouch, professor, my foot!” 

“Sorry, uh. O-out, all of you out!”

He absently slapped at the crowd, upsetting some poor girl’s butterfly clips as he clumsily nudged her outside. Some of the younger children cried, hiccuping dreadfully, setting off the rest to shout frightened questions. 

“What’s hap—!”

“Is it Potter!? Bet he talks to birds, too!”

“Sir, my owl—!”

They crushed in. Remus gasped, begging they made space before he toppled over. Hearing a shriek and feeling tiny hands scrabble at his hem, he dove into the swell and resurfaced, hefting a scrawny first year by the armpits. He held the scuffed, sobbing boy above the crowd that would’ve trampled him. 

“Calm down, everybody!,” he yelled, handing the child to a frazzled Miss Greengrass—one of them, the nice one—before funneling more threatened children from the crowd. His back screamed. He powered through the lancing pain. “Please, just a bl—a _moment_ , there are—! Stop!” 

“Prefects, please find your Houses and escort them to their first classes.” Albus’s soft, steady voice rose over the din of maddened birds and the clamor of panicked school kids. 

Remus tore his gaze away from the chaos around him to the Headmaster, standing by his massive, gold chair. The old wizard met all the adults’ eyes and nodded reassuringly, before looking to the students and doing the same, imbuing them all with his calm and sense of order. 

The older students herded the younger out into the halls, all with tight, nervous faces, some flinching up at the ceiling a few more times as they stood ushering their schoolmates. Remus gave everyone who bumped past some superficial praise to keep them going. 

“Yes, exactly, good job. Perfect, yes. To class...yes, to class.”

The prefects did well, and were each awarded House points in a rush before, gladly, shoving to safety. The remaining professors pushed the last fascinated stragglers out, as well. Minerva corralled the Weasley twins, who’d climbed onto a table each—Remus only saw them shouting, as the boys’ words were eaten up by the screeching overhead. Their Head finally snagged them by their sleeves and marshaled them to the doors. Across the hall, Snape did the same, towing a handful of his third years by their hoods and tossing them into the leaving mob. 

The double doors banged shut and locked behind the last student, just as the first feathery missile hit the ground with a hard _thunk._ Remus leveled his wand at the ceiling, swallowing bile, and searched for another of Albus’s nods. 

“Yes, please,” the headmaster permitted, brandishing his own wand from his sparkly sleeve, expression managed. “Professors, let's join in settling our flying friends. Hagrid, would you suggest a Cheering Charm?”

Remus looked to the shaken groundskeeper, who gaped at the fighting birds, and keened when another hit the floor in a puff of bloody down. 

“Hagrid,” Albus tried again. This time the half-giant shook, his dark, bushy beard glittering with drops of spewed tea. He thumped a heavy palm over his heart, which no doubt hurt for the deranged flock.

He said something but lost to the cacophony. Remus only caught, “ch—m,” and “little ‘uns.” He waves and shook his head. 

“Charms an’ such are tricky o-on the animals!,” Hagrid boomed, face crumbling as more owls fell on them like hail. “Ah, but would yeh lookit the state of ‘em!”

“Stun the blasted things,” snapped Snape, straight black wand trained on the frenzy.

He ended up by Remus as the Defense professor had manned the doors. So they stood close enough for Remus to see the black wand tip spark red, as if eager to shoot something down. 

“No, yeh can’t! Terrible weak bones, birds ‘ave! Yeh’ll break their little necks!,” protested Hagrid. His eyes welled with tears above his beard and swollen nose and the other teachers rallied around him. 

“Of course, yes, and we’d like to avoid that,” agreed Dumbledore, who held impressively firm when a dead owl slammed into the Head Table.

It smashed into what remained of a full English, upending a goblet, which clanged, rolling to the floor. The bird thrashed and then collapsed, having made a sizable dent in the egg-smeared metal plate with its frightfully fragile skull.

Remus felt sick again.

“Professor Snape, please fetch Filius from his morning Charms. Give him my apologies, but I believe we require a bit of his extended repertoire. Do hurry.” 

The potions master spun on his heel, robes billowing, like his own pair of snapping wings. Given Snape’s jet black hair and forbiddingly high collar that morning, he outdid the daylit shadows along the walls.

By then, Remus had reapproached the teachers’ dais, where the rest of the staff reconvened. He accepted a pair of earmuffs as Minerva transfigured them from serviettes. Snape, in his peevish flap, returned to the main group, brusquely taking a pair for himself.

“Out of my way, you—,” Snape snarled, then stopped abruptly. Sentence and form, the man froze right as he brushed past Remus’s arm, which the werewolf snatched away, as if bitten. 

_Oh, here we go,_ he thought, peering sidelong at Snape’s venomous glare. _Touch the snake and get bit, is it?_

“Pardon,” but then Remus realized Snape wasn’t glaring at him until he excused himself. The dark eyes flitted to him when he spoke, bouncing between him and—Remus turned—nothing. Spilled juice and empty space.

That vicious glare lapsed into an effortless disgust, the kind that came easily to the man when his eyes listed Remus’s way. Oh, now he had the Slytherin’s attention. He returned that lazy nastiness with a distant, guileless grin, as he departed from the insult before it even arrived, begging another pardon as he dashed backward into his own thoughts to enjoy their welcome company. 

He hadn’t wanted to trade words with the man. They jumped apart to dodge another crashing bird, the wind whistling in this one’s slack beak as it cracked into the wall. Remus watched the wreck of hollow bones slide down the wall, thoroughly numbed. This was all a long way from toast and a cuppa.

Strangely, it was when sheltered among his thoughts he found more poorly dispatched curiosity, and about Snape: what had he been looking at? Remus floated around again. Nothing. Even Albus had left.

_What does it matter what he’s looking at,_ he reasoned, glancing up to the owls, which had slowed their mobbing enough for some to perch on the high windows. The shrieking dialed down to a squeal. 

Despite himself, Remus returned to Snape, who still hadn’t moved. He wasn’t close enough to feel the heat from, if the man cast any to be felt. But his gaze had lit up again and returned sideways, and down. There was nothing there except the scuffed wood of the table, the collapsed bird in Albus’s scramble, and a puddle of spilled juice. But the potions master went ashen. 

_Does he hate birds? Well, hmph._ It struck him as a useless question. It was probably safe to say Snape hated anything and be right. 

Although, if he hated owls, Remus would expect him to look pleased—in that awful way he did—rather than...defiant? And somewhat betrayed? What was _wrong_ with him?

_Well, don’t ask him, obviously,_ he cautioned himself. 

_And besides, I’m sure I don’t care,_ he remembered next. 

Snape didn't have enough depth to him to capture Remus with his funny motives. He was odd, so he acted oddly, simple as syrup. There was nothing about him that Remus needed to know, much less ask him about. 

“Are you alright, Severus?” 

Remus jumped and looked down the table. Dumbledore caught his eye and gestured upwards. 

Above them, the owls dispersed, flapping confusedly. They cried out before gliding down, raining broken feathers and fleshy pink fluff. They landing on the lacquered tables, padded benches, staff chairs, and wax-dressed candelabra, talons clicking against the soft wood and brass. 

He jumped at the _scree_ of a tawny owl landed beside him, accusing him with round, yellow eyes. Clots speckled the spiky, broken quills mussing its face mask. Gouges on its beak showed it had narrowly escaped with its sight. He knew from the smartness of post owls that it blamed him, or rather, all the wizards present. It flapped its large, disheveled wings.

_Screeeeee!_

The other owls took up a fervor, as if casting aspersions at the staff. Then they launched into the air in a wild flurry, up and out the windows, deafening in their number. Their piercing cries trailed off outside the castle walls.

“Hagrid, what’s come over them?,” McGonagall called from the doorway, frowning at the last tail feathers disappearing over the buttressed ledges. 

“I dunno, professor. Couldn’t tell yeh if I tried,” the groundskeeper sniffled. “They’ve been actin’ a bit off since start a’ last year, but I’d figured it were the business with the roosters and all that talk a’ Slytherin’s monster.” 

“Clearly they’ve all caught some sort of madness,” Snape supplied in a low, droning voice.

Remus turned, waiting for him to finish with, “Best you should put them down,” as expected. However, he could barely see the man’s face to watch it, as when he pointed his half-lidded stare Snape-ways, he found Albus had slid between them. 

Remus backed off of the dais, bemused, wondering what happened. Despite his affectionate twinkle, the older wizard had very obviously blocked Snape with his body. What for? They’d hardly exchanged more than the few words. 

“For now at least, whatever’s come into them has passed,” Albus offered, addressing the professors as a group. He raised his arms such that his long sleeves curtained Snape hunched behind them. 

_What’s going on?,_ Remus nearly said aloud. He didn’t want the trouble, but clearly something else was happening. 

The headmaster must’ve noticed he was baffled, as he did very little to hide it, wondering what he had done wrong. Albus twinkled at him more forcefully, leaning on those patient, pale blues, and stepped down, resting a wrinkled hand on his shoulder.

It landed lightly and with easy warmth. And so, the gust of fragrant, frigid air that followed hit Remus all the harder.

_Soil…?_ It smelled like the forest in fall. He bent around the old man’s crooked arm and saw Snape hustle away. 

Those narrow shoulders squeezed in around his snarling, stubbly face, he powered through the loosely gathered staff to a door off the side. In a dozen, lanky strides, he billowed into a dark side room, vanishing into the other shades and slamming the door behind him.

Remus squinted at the tiny room, while the teachers grumbled up at Albus about the mess. He recalled a flash of cream against the brown and yellow of Snape’s long hands. It looked like parchment. He wondered if, in all that chaos, someone had actually managed to send the man a letter. 

“Albus, some of these are student owls!,” lamented Sprout, the matronly woman tutting at the birds smashed along the flagstones. “What will we tell the children, and their parents? These were familiars, after all, the poor dears.” 

“Allow some time for investigation,” the Headmaster replied, lowering his arms and folding his hands across his beard. “After which, hopefully, the matter will lend itself more to explanation.

“Hagrid, if you would, please take these unfortunate few and tell me all you can find. The school owls you may delve into more deeply than the familiars. I will ask Professor Snape to advise on that.”

“Yeck—y-yessir, Headmaster,” the groundskeeper promised gruffly, hiccuping as if holding in a sob. “I’ll get on it right away.”

“Thank you. Thank all of you. I understand needing a second to breathe, and then, for those who can, please see to the students. I will speak with the house elves on restoring the hall.”

With that, he charmed away the prevailing layer of red feathers and stink of musk. The hall was cleared except for the lumps with horrid, twisted wings. 

Pomona summoned gloves to help gather a few. Remus volunteered to help as well, to have the task done quicker and to spare Hagrid some distress. He was handed leather palm work gloves and told to wrap his nose and mouth. 

“Mustn’t breathe anything in, in case there’s disease,” she shared, looking grave. “Although fingers crossed that isn’t the cause.”

“Have the school owls fallen ill like this before?,” he asked, transfiguring a napkin into a loose-knit scarf. The Hufflepuff Head clucked and conjured him a fresh bandana from midair. He thanked her and tied it around his face.

“Have they? Well, clearly not often! Not at all since I’ve taught here, if think back,” she blustered, starting at the edge of the Hufflepuff table. He watched as she gathered a fallen Scops owl into her bulky palm. She turned it to him sadly, shaking her head at the little bundle. 

“Such a shame. I do hope it’s not an illness, although I can’t imagine what else would do this.” 

“Don’t you think a spell?” 

“Of course a spell, yes, but from who? And whatever for!? Who would do—oh, please be a dear and conjure a bag for—thank you, Remus.” She slid the tiny owl into the woven sack he floated to her, sucking her teeth.

“And if it _is_ a spell, we’ll have to ward it off the children, possibly without knowing what it is. I’m not scared, mind!”

Sprout puffed up proudly before walking down a ways to the next lump, this one a hefty-looking eagle owl. 

“Oh, goodness, I’ll need your help with her, so sorry. Please—yes, exactly.” 

“I’ve got it,” Remus muttered, helping manhandle the larger bird in after the first. It was lighter than expected. The bag bobbed, accepting the burden, and some quills poked through the weave.

Incomprehensibly, his stomach chose then to gurgle, its growl carrying to the other end of the room. Hagrid and Minerva looked up from where the witch consoled the half-giant. Sprout uttered a shocked, “Oh!” He flashed white hot, blood rushing in his ears. 

_Good gods, they’ll think I’m a monster,_ he thought, stammering an apology. 

“Dead pets making you peckish, Lupin?”

Remus bridled at Snape’s jab, hearing him before seeing him stalk from the side room. He hitched a breath to reply this time when, again, Albus reappeared between them. 

He didn’t even see the Headmaster leave or return, only heard the side door click closed and the dull clap of Snape’s boot heels on the floor. Meanwhile, Albus slid along in front of the Slytherin Head like the man was his second shadow. Remus only stole a glimpse of greasy hair.

Why did Albus keep doing that?

Some days, yes, Snape set into him with far too much bloodlust. So far, it happened in one of their offices, above a goblet of steaming sludge. Remus would struggle for composure as his dignity was lit up in a stunning display. Snape wouldn’t spare a barb, and the colors of his staunch loathing flashed Remus back to a muzzy, grey place, high up inside, where his own venom couldn’t find a fang. 

And at those times, Remus needed another person to play go-between, say the words for him so he needn’t bother, be the calm and sensible one in his emotional absence. He might need Albus then, either before Snape lost it and actually stabbed him; or before Remus’s tired feet fell from where his head hid in the clouds and touched on hell-heated ground, igniting him, inciting him, and he ate that horrible git alive. 

But there was no way Albus could know that. Otherwise, every Wolfsbane delivery would come with a social worker and a blast shield. No, this was as if he expected Remus to endanger Snape. The potions master strode along, hidden, like some blushing virgin before a beast. 

“I believe we will reconvene this afternoon, for a fuller debriefing of events, as well as discussion of next steps,” Albus instructed. 

“But the students—!,” the deputy headmistress returned, aghast. She had an armful of the Weasley Great Grey, Errol. A wing twitch suggested he was stunned, but still alive. “You don’t mean that we should all carry on, business as usual?” 

“No, of course not.” Albus was nearly out the door now. “Please tell your classes that I will address the school at dinner tonight. I’ll only be more able to make an announcement once there is more information to share.”

“And you’ll inform us beforehand, if there’s anything…,” trailed off Sprout, brow furrowed. 

“Absolutely, yes.” 

“Just wipe Lupin’s slobber off of the samples, so there’s something left to study,” snarked Snape before his cloak snapped over the threshold. 

Remus opened his mouth to defend himself, either from the insult or his own burgeoning self-awareness. They were both delivered onto him so swiftly, he gagged; and just as quickly, Snape and Dumbledore were gone.

He sagged, defeated, when he heard a flutter, only barely. It flirted around him over Hagrid clearing his throat. He slowed to a stop, letting Pomona putter ahead. Turning to another snap of fabric, he saw a gorgeous scarlet streak dancing down from the ceiling. 

It twirled as if to music, and he stumbled out from under it, sure it had to be enchanted. At first, he thought it was a cardinal that had gotten caught up in the mob, stunned and dizzy from a beating. Then it danced closer, and Remus realized it was just a scarf as it fell from the rendered clouds in a beam of white, imitated sun. 

Hearing an ecstatic gasp, clear as day, his mind hurtled back to his morning of strange, breathy fantasies. And the rest of him, used to traveling thoughtlessly, plucked down the morning soaked cloth, damp from the air outside.

He worried it in his hands, spreading the feel of the lurid, coarse wool along his fingers. It rippled despite the weight of the yarn, and eventually settled against his arms, as would a normal scarf, save the warmth.

It felt comfortably more than cool, as if recently wrapped around a throat, maybe tugged off by an owl and lost in the frenzy. It wasn’t a student’s scarf, or at least not from a particular house. It had no crests, however fuzzy and well worn it seemed.

It could have belonged to anyone, although it looked so vivid, it made the real world around it fade, like the only clear memory from a dream. Remus felt certain that if he’d ever seen it on someone, he would remember who. 

“Oh, are you cold? It is getting cooler sooner this year,” Pomona commiserated, noticing him holding the scarf. “Uh, the bag, dear?”

Remus unthinkingly draped the scarf around his neck while still wondering about it, and floated over the sack of dead owls. He breathed a heady scent from the wool when his chin brushed it: cloves; something musty, like rawhide; sweet turpentine, resinous and chemical; and strong, bitter herbs, like wormwood and milk thistle. 

He lost himself standing there, nose buried in the smell. Although the sharp, medicinal notes made his stomach roil, he weathered it for the sweet and savory buried beneath it that revived his fickle appetite. 

After finishing with the birds and wishing Hagrid and the others his best, he elected to visit the kitchens before class. His students wouldn’t notice if he was a little late.

He kept the scarf as well, breathing deeply from it once he stepped out into the corridor. He realized, looking around, that some students still dallied, whispering amongst themselves. 

“Come, you’ve all heard Professor Dumbledore. To class,” Remus shooed, stashing his find in his trouser pocket. He would check it over later. 

* * *

“And I’m assuming there are no clues as to the sender,” Albus asked, stroking his beard. Severus paced the Headmaster’s office, sneering at the square of parchment preciously held on the desk.

“Obviously not—but I know it’s him!”

“‘Him?’ You mean this voice you say plagues you?”

Severus bristled, outraged by the implication in the older man’s tone. Every time they had come to discuss the spirit haunting him, Albus treated him like a child. 

“It’s real! You’ve seen it!,” he hissed, pointing, finger shaking in accusation. “That bloody mirror haunts my every moment, waking and asleep! You know—!”

“I know you’ve been brewing your own supply of Dreamless Sleep,” the wizard retorted, resting his elbows on the desk.

His blue eyes flicked up from the missive and down again, before finally committing to Severus’s agitated self with mild disapproval.

“I’ve reviewed your pantry orders for the next quarter year and see far more for medicinal purposes than previous years. Poppy reports regular use in the Infirmary. I can only assume you’ve been using it for yourself, to quell your anxieties.”

_“Anxieties,”_ he mocked. _Doesn’t that say it all..._

“So what? I’ve the license and budget—you said so yourself.” He stopped pacing and lowered his point, seeing it did nothing but painted him as more of the anxious paranoid. 

Severus simply stood, feet apart, back curved, quivering. He hadn’t even used the Dreamless in a week, in an attempt to spare his liver. His last few nights had been agony. 

Ever since Lupin started at Hogwarts, Severus’s strange affliction awakened tenfold. What used to be a persistent haze became an entirely second person squatting in his skin. He spoke to the voice almost daily. He woke up past multiple midnights to having wandered the castle grounds, a close swipe from the Whomping Willow having jolted him awake the one time.

At another, it was the clank of a deadbolt sliding shut. Trapped, he assailed the barred door with his naked fists, unarmed, vaguely terrified for the fate of his missing wand. 

Then he took in the random, trash-filled room he would spend that and other spells in. Somewhere on the seventh floor, the endless woods lurked, promised in the facets of discarded gems and jewels. For weeks, his hours were lost to it: beating at the lock, yelling at rubbish, chasing phantoms darting around mountains of vials and hobbled armoires. 

The fog returned. It smelled sharply of soap and chocolate, another mortifying tool for his torment. And around their first full moon in September, he started delivering Lupin his liquid leash. 

_“Thank you, Professor Snape.”_ Pandering, every evening, like it amused the wolf that they were colleagues. 

So then, on the second to last delivery that week, Severus leaned in to show him his place. And simultaneously, Lupin reached for the goblet, like he did every time, like he didn’t _think._ He bumped his calloused hands onto Severus’s tight knuckles, right when they were far too close, close enough to share breath. 

Severus didn’t even remember what he said after that. He only knew that he didn’t enjoy saying it. Spewing that vitriol happened like vomiting, pouring down his front and onto Lupin and slippery under his shoes, and he couldn’t stop it. The voice even tried to interrupt him, but he kept on, and it fell back, leaving all the ranting to him. 

Severus returned to his room that night, wrecked, and suffered the dream again. Only these hands weren’t consoling. They were the same hands, Lupin’s hands, but grabbing and searing, driving the poison out of him like a fever. Scalding. Welcome.

“The only way I’ll stand to serve that wolf is if I’m allowed a few decent nights’ sleep!” 

Albus’s face creased, showing his age, and beyond that, the sand and the line drawn in it. “I’ll not have a professor abusing his resources for personal use. That ends with this discussion. Am I understood?”

“I—!”

“Professor Snape.” This brooked no further argument. 

Severus wanted to give up this moment, his body, his terrors, for some rest. Taking this brief despair for tacit agreement, Albus continued. 

“Be sensible, Severus. News of Sirius Black sightings suggests he is nearing the castle, and with the Dementors’ affect, I see no need to tax yourself any further. Remain steady. I need you fully present for what’s afoot.”

_What do you think I’m doing?,_ he thought, his last nerve fraying. 

_He’ll never believe you. He hasn’t heard of me from all his great adventures, and so he’s convinced I don’t exist,_ the cold whispered. 

_What’re you again? Misplaced Byronian delusion?_ He wanted to sink into a chair, but only stared rigidly at the one offered. Severus hated the idea of sharing eye level with Albus’s frown.

“Is there something just now that I should know about?”

“No,” Severus bit out.

Eventually he had gone to Albus, telling him nearly everything, knowing that he was gripped fast, toyed with, possessed. But after many lengthy Legilimency sessions, Veritaserum, Pensieve dives, they couldn’t agree on a cause, although Severus insisted: the mirror! Albus explained that the Mirror of Erised showed desires, not regrets. 

Severus often hoped Albus had lied, hating more than anything that he was afraid and living adrift in the unknown, possibly even losing his mind.

_You’re not. You never really listen, do you? I’ve even sent you a letter, and pray tell, what insanity can do that. Feel it! Fine parchment. India ink._

_I must’ve written it somehow and sent it to myself,_ Severus reasoned, sick with dread. _I don’t remember sending it to myself, but I must have. And the owls, I...cursed them while sleepwalking._

_When?_

_I don’t know, damn you! The last time you played puppeteer!?_

_Either I am real,_ it sighed, exasperated, _and_ _pulling on your strings, and your master’s a narcissistic fool for doubting you—or! I am a figment of your abused imagination. Make up—your mind._

_Which is the truth!?,_ he pleaded. 

_The former!,_ it retorted as if itself distressed in its own ghostly rights. _But you aren’t the only one to be so cruelly disbelieved._

“Why a wedding invitation?,” Severus croaked, needing to hear himself aloud. He sounded suddenly ill, even to his own ears, and especially with Albus’s frown lessening with his concern, he sounded helpless.

“I’d think to occasion your attending,” the Headmaster said, almost whimsically. He picked up the raw edged letter and read. “‘We bid you witness our union under the frostbitten wood, midnight on November the first.’ Unfortunately, there are no names.” 

“Sterger,” Severus urged, skin tingling beneath his collar. 

He’d heard the name down vacant hallways, or seen it scrawled in the margins of his books; etched in tables; and drawn in chalk with him a streaked, powdery mess, and his chalkboard covered in a stranger’s handwriting. A hundred student essays had a scribble of red ink where a name used to be.

“Even so, that’s only one of presumably two people being married. That could prove fascinating to witness, but not so much so that we can allow more mornings like this one. If this continues to play out in front of students, I will have to intervene. 

“Besides which, Severus, you truly do not seem well.”

_I’m not,_ he agreed. 

“What’ll you have me do about it? Take a health sabbatical?”

“If you must. If you feel it’s as bad as that, I will gladly have your classes covered, and provide whatever other help you need.” Albus stared at him unblinkingly over his silver half-moon glasses. “Has it come to that?”

Thus descended a waiting silence wherein Severus was allowed to ponder. He had never been offered leave before, particularly because he was so dearly needed, and because all the professors had the summer to rest. This year was already fraught—Lupin, testing him; Black skulking closer by the day, nearing Severus’s flagging grasp; his doppelgänger, hovering in every reflection, always baiting him; and the dreams, too bright, too fervent. 

_If staying will kill you, then go,_ the voice said forbearingly. It was the nerve, and then the pity, that made his choice. 

“Of course not,” he sniffed. “I was only being facetious. However, if you’re willing to excuse a day of my classes and allow the Dreamless—.”

“I will excuse your classes for today, yes. I still ban the brewing of sedatives if you plan to self-administer. You can always visit Poppy for a full physical and a proper diagnosis, or if there’s another licensed Healer you trust, you’re allowed another day for an appointment.

“I can’t control what you brew for yourself, Severus, but I can forbid you from abusing this school’s property. If the potions are a problem, then I doubt I can stop you. Luckily for both of us, I don’t believe they are.”

“Then why put your foot down?,” was his surly reply, although by now he had gravitated to a seat, although he was too stiff to sit. 

Albus smoothed out, relaxing into a grandfatherly old man again. He finished while examining the envelope for Severus’s letter. Plain white, smudged with dirt; no written addresses. 

“Peace of mind, dear boy, nothing more. Might I trouble you to leave this with me? The contents as well, please. I’d like to see what else can be learned from it. Fret not, I’ll make certain to return it as is.” 

The cold hadn’t spoken in some time. It hovered inside, poised along all his limbs like birds on branches, watching wordlessly. He felt that, but it didn’t object. 

Severus hesitated, but nodded his consent. He had already studied it himself. There were no enchantments or detectable poisons, and the handwriting was again familiar but untraceable—evocative, with wide, sweeping curls and tiny, jagged letters, like whiskers and teeth. He wanted to see what Albus could glean from that.

“Excellent! I’ll start looking right away. And Severus,” a baby blue twinkle, as if nothing was ever deeply wrong, “rest well.” 

“Hmph.” 

Severus left. If anything, he left glad that he’d been freed of teaching for a day. The cold stayed mute, but his body buzzed. Coming down the stairs, he didn’t at all like the quiet thrumming in his blood that denoted the nearness of a certain beast. As predicted, he rounded a corner, and walked through a waft of soap and chocolate. 

He surveyed the hallway on the ground floor, failing to see Lupin anywhere whilst knowing he’d be somewhere close by. 

“—ning, my apologies. Yes, class is still on. Merlin, all of you left? No, follow me, this way.”

Severus swept toward the dungeons, narrowly avoiding being seen. He shortened his stride when Lupin’s raspy laugh fell far below Severus’s footsteps. He breathed relief when the man’s smell blew away, weaker than the treated tapestries, damp stone, and dust. 

He hunted down a skinny passageway branching off one corridor. It hid behind a banner of Gabian En Gaol, the shackled Spanish warlock, imprisoned for allegedly consorting with Muggle devils. Severus pushed aside the weave of the wretch Gabian wailing in his chains, patterned in muted browns. 

The passage's steep staircase wound down to by his quarters. He used this to dodge more children trickling up from his empty classroom. And he preferred this way to the main halls, as there were no windows or polished suits of armor, posing with huge gleaming axes, shields, and broadswords—nothing reflective.

He slid sideways down the tight stairs until he landed, smacking cobwebs from his robes. 

Soon he returned to his apartment, checking that he was alone first, then muttering the password and hurrying inside. The dark wizard sighed gustily once enveloped in relative safety. 

Severus waited a beat to hear the locks click and caught his breath. Nostrils flaring, he surveyed his barebones furniture, every surface covered in books and open journals, all where he left it. 

Several books had margins ruined with fierce scribbling. Pages were ripped through from vigorous quill tips trying to erase _its_ name. The Prophets clogging the bins were all decorated with “ST—STERG—,” torn up and thrown away. But he had removed any mirrors. He drank little in his quarters, if at all. The bottles of gift liquor he kept, barely dipped in, were all under sinks or in cupboards.

The rest of the school was too unpredictable, but here, he waged his war with marked success. 

_No bloody spills to account for,_ he groused, shucking his clothes and boots in the kitchen. His stomach gurgled, and he thought to call the kitchens. Right when he sat to eat, Lupin had tiptoed into the Great Hall, distracting him.

He had disgusting timing. Just as Severus had discreetly adjusted his collar, the blood hum started, and he looked up, shocked. Why was the wolf on his feet already? Last month, he’d needed four days. Now it was three? Then the mail incited an avion riot, stopping Lupin’s slow roll up the hall. 

_He even walks like his cringing,_ Severus derided, except Lupin didn’t, which lent to his vexation. Lupin had a low, pitiful gait, most definitely. He looked so sickly, he surprised Severus with his being upright at all. But then he lifted his head and the light tripped across his rueful, insular expressions, like this lesser world that dogged Severus, for him stopped right beneath the surface. 

The werewolf rarely _looked_ afraid, as meek and mild as he liked to act. And Severus knew Lupin had some fears, but nothing apparently harrowed him outside of himself. The haunted wizard felt envious. He feared himself and the other selves stuck to him and the daytime and the night and juice spills and little, white letters.

He dug over the sink, shaking off his robes to throw on a chair. Feathers fell onto the counter with the dry herb litter, stale bread crusts, a cast iron pan. The leaky spout dripped into piles of soiled wax paper, soaking cut twine. Severus forewent shiny dishes for bagged lunches weeks ago. Most of which went bad on the counter where the elves left them, but he hoped for something in his cabinets.

“You know, I like you. Very much.” 

The half-blood started, then scratched his stubble and kept scavenging. He didn’t turn around. He simply glowered into his sparse pantry, pushing around jars, sweeping aside shriveled flies and spider legs. He was tired of this. Let him be insane. 

“ _You_ came into _my_ domain. I suppose I’ve been asleep so long, they’ve built a castle on top of me, and you were the first, frightful soul I touched. You were so tiny yet shocking, it shook me awake. I’ve only grown fonder of you since.”

“Go away.” Cold seeped into his back. Fingers of fog curled over his kitchen, ghosting over his socked feet. 

“I only want you to be happy,” it entreated. 

“You want my misery. You want me to beat and wail and debase myself. How is that happiness?”

“You enjoy others’ misery, including your own, and don’t see it as a failing. Why am I so heinous?”

“Leave me _be,_ ” Severus whispered, giving up the facade of gathering food. He just stood there tensing over his sink, fist tight on his wand. 

Eventually, the closing space between his back and the other body let up. The cold withdrew. And then, hot as bile, Severus spat, “I’ve never been _liked,_ and that is largely by design. If you feel you _like_ me, you’re certainly no delusion of mine. So be real! And be gone! Stuff your wed—!”

He spun around, strong in his fury, but the demon had fled. The faucet dripped, tacking the wax paper. He quivered in his wrinkled under things, alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	3. Desirous, Or Otherwise Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus fears and wants equally.

The potions master’s bedroom suffered under the taxing weight of barely endured days and desperate nights. It reeked of clammy body and pungent, bitter leaf that punctured the staleness of the twisted sheets layered with ink spills and the dust from cracked book bindings.

Said books littered the space, all overstaying permissions from the Restricted Section as steadily more cursed texts were consulted and left butterflied, brittle pages soaking in the humid stink. Meager marshes of unwashed robes, shirts, and trousers, all in charcoal blacks and algae greens, damp and moist from the room’s subterranean condition, pooled around the centuries-old four poster bed with its scored, deep brown frame and stripped bare curtain rods, open, the panoptic cell in which struggled the man. 

Severus woke, leaving his warped, funhouse dreams. Weeks of Dreamless still lingered in his body enough to blacken some parts of his nightmares when the rest broke through. So his first thought came like a caption under figures of half-formed faces like drawn in one of his borrowed books. 

He remembered an eye so sunken into a skull that it lent the imagined face the impression of rottenness, like a thumbprint pressed deep into an overripe apple without yet breaking skin.

He saw this face and thought: _Someone’s watching me._

He shot upright. Heart hammering, Severus ripped away the laces of his nightshirt that had wound around his neck with his nightly fits. He wheezed and searched his room with wide eyes, inviting all the little light left without the stubby flame of his lamps. He rather violently missed light switches for all of a second before remembering he had magic and digging his wand from its holster. 

He slept with it strapped to his forearm since the cold came for him that morning. The black wand bisected the smoky, faded Dark Mark, leaving the brand whole when he snatched the wood free. It fizzed with wordless panic when Severus jutted it over the foot of his bed, the wizard posed on his hands and knees, menacing a chair. 

He kept one salvaged chair in his room, the only furniture beside the bed, wardrobe, and nightstands. With it still flaking off old red paint, revealing the light wood’s slivering with age, he used it for his Muggle coats and “journals,” which he called his stacks of string-tied papers, foregoing a coat tree or a desk.

The chair had swollen some with the wet summer leaching through the stones. Its now uneven feet forced a wobble into it that clattered against the undressed floor when something landed on it, either clothes or a new manuscript. 

It clattered now, the chair’s soft knock beating against the wall. Severus panted, too short of breath, throat constricting with terror. Something _sat_ in the chair, facing him, rocking agitatedly while he keened. The glint of arsenic green in two pits of all-consuming black told him he had indeed been watched while he slept.

What had woken him was jittering in his corner. 

“Get out,” Severus whispered, breaking out in sweat. The room wasn’t foggy or icy cold as he’d come to expect when the demon visited. He hoisted his wand higher, but didn’t dare leave the bed. “Leave.”

The chair creaked to a stop, and the demon sat pinstraight, watching him from the dark. Severus only caught the shape of it: a man about his proportions, sitting with one leg crossed over the other knee; with a crown resembling antlers but was likely fingers as they cricked and twitched on its head when he spoke, like the legs of a startled spider. 

When it replied, its pointed teeth flashed, nearly glowing, “I’m only thinking, Severus. I haven’t touched you. Return to sleep.”

With that, he felt disposed to never sleep again. The demon moved and he blanched. The scuff of unfinished cloth on cloth was too physical a sound in the close space. He bit his cheek and retreated to the headboard, balanced on quaking fingertips and clicking knees, hoping he made as little other noise as possible. 

The bed boards squeaked. The demon breathed and Severus flinched away, afraid to see the shadowed chest rise. 

_Is it alive?_ , he feared, only but so privately as the being snorted, clearly hearing him. Both wizard and specter shared quiet for several minutes, while Severus tried to figure out the time. 

“Early evening,” it supplied. It shuffled again, wobbling the chair, evoking a human man settling in for a long wait. 

“You’re becoming more…,” Severus swallowed, disturbed. “You’re more real.”

“I’ve been regaining my strength,” it returned with a self-satisfied hum. “My own sleep was far too long, but I’m almost completely restored. Thank you for your efforts.”

“Never thank me! I _despise_ you!”

“You despise fear and fear me, that’s all.” He hated how unfortunate it tried to sound. “The rest of what you feel is too short of knowing my deepest nature to concern me—much. The opposite is true from me to you.” 

It leaned back, the move marked by the chair tapping the wall. A few chips of red paint flicked onto its indistinct robes, and were brushed away. The brushing hand returned, in all its long-knuckled glory, to summon light to the room, setting aglow the wicks of the glass-covered lamps. It then passed its fingers over its face, right as the lamplight dared to touch on the gaunt contours of its visage. 

A pale mask appeared over its features, the yellow of old parchment. The pairing of the mask with the dark robes herded Severus to the edge of his bed to keep distance. He could only think that now the demon had costumed itself as another memory, this one of himself as a Death Eater. It was only in it leaning into the amber light that he realized the pale mask, indeed a skull, wasn’t human like a Death Eater’s but was, in all fact, animal. 

He could recognize the sculpt of it from harvesting ingredients in many forests, usually in winter. Not unlike a specimen Severus might have kept, it shone wetly with humid mist. The demon wore a deer skull, picked clean and aged. Likewise its robes, all rough, black cotton, ripped away from the old chair, smooth with wear, and unfolded a rustic being of a worrisome height. 

Severus craned his neck back with heart-stopping terror. To see all of it, he had bend enough to practically lie back in his sheets, like a child cowering before a monster. It spoke. 

“You know my name, Severus. Can’t we be cordial?” 

“Like hell!,” he spat, forgetting to shrink, lunging into the tension, butting the crisis. “I’ll never—!”

It loomed closer, finally bringing with it the teeth-chattering cold. Severus shook in his thin shirt, considering burrowing under the sheets before giving that up. He could never stop the cold penetrating his skin, not with insulation or magic; not visiting the common room fire after curfew; and not standing over a cauldron, considering sinking his prickling fingers into the boiling soup. 

Instead he weathered the terrible freeze until, shockingly, it withdrew quicker than it came. The demon retreated to the old chair, making it clack as it sat again. He glowered. 

Severus had researched as much as possible on his affliction. He chased whatever answer his tried mind could think up. 

He hadn’t been poisoned, as he’d done nothing new and repeatedly enough in the last two years to support poisoning. He had changed how, where, and what he ate and drank in so haphazard a way as to believe that the problem wasn’t ingested. 

With diagnostic spells and potions, he had cleared himself of any physical disease besides the effects of stress. Mentally, nothing preceding the terror could explain its frightening intelligence. He still wrestled with if he’d lost his mind. That being said, that other people could feel the cold told him it must be sensible. He’d often leave a wake of whining students breathing on their hands, and felt it confirmed symptoms of his haunting. He turned to creatures next. 

Burying himself in texts brought him closer and farther to reason. It preceded the Dementors. Boggart? It far outclassed that. He had run down the list of beings—hags, wraiths—and all manner of spirits—and could only call it a demon of his father’s Muggle faith in the absence of any other answer. 

Staring directly at it in its physical presence: he almost wanted to reach out and throttle it. He seethed in the heat of that hatred, but didn’t move, because heavens and hells forbid he wrapped his own itching fingers around a throat—could it even die?

They measured one another across the bedroom, their shadows dancing on the walls. 

“...Please,” Severus tried quietly. The crown twitched. It was listening. “Please leave me alone.”

“You’ve only begged a handful of times before.” It seemed impressed.

He sniffed. “Less than.” 

“Yes, only for love, so far. And you were used, weren’t you?”

“Not this shit again,” he growled, again summoning courage in irritation and sliding to the floor. 

They froze when his feet slapped the ground. Then the demon readjusted and stayed put, while Severus, eyes riveted to the corner, crept heel-to-toe toward the bathroom. The green glare followed him, but let the door close between them unobstructed. 

He turned, spelling the lamps on, and jumped at his reflection. It stood, smiling with too many, crooked teeth. He had the mirror painted opaque before, but saw the neutral grey paint had dribbled off, down the walls and drain.

Thinking the demon would mirror Lily Potter again, Severus covered his eyes and cast, “ _Echolocus._ ”

A clear bell rang out in regular intervals. _D_ _ing...ding…_

He mumbled, “Shower,” and followed the ring as it guided him and floated away.

As he shuffled blindly, he recalled beseeching Dumbledore for help, years ago and earlier that day. Like his time in the chamber, he remembered his whole weight on his knees, and from that awful time in 1981, he remembered the pitiless reception, Dumbledore’s disgust; and from that morning, the stiffness in his joints, the man’s hardly more than casual interest, the non-negotiability of Severus’s discomfort. 

_Albus has always been difficult to convince,_ supplied his own thoughts, to the wizard’s unease. Who would believe a violent Death Eater, Voldemort’s spy, in the midst of war? What fueled his vitriol? Of course Dumbledore was stony then.

_And this morning? You’ve always suffered. Men like you are hardly satisfied,_ and again, he didn’t think this with a chill suggesting it was the demon speaking. This was him. 

Inside himself, wrapped in a membrane thin as his nightshirt, grew a grudge. It lodged deeper than the one that ran rampant over Potter and his ilk, deeper than his one against Lupin, almost deeper than his hatred of himself save for an inch of loathing. He hated Dumbledore—no—he hated Dumbledore’s ignorance.

He hated the eye never cast upon his wounds only because they weren’t physical or immediately fatal. He hated hurting with nothing left to hurt in turn. 

“Yes, he did use you, didn’t he? Even now, he doesn’t know that you’re still loyal out of love. Duty, maybe,” recounted the mirror clone. Severus tried to ignore it, but the clinging film around his grudge fluttered dangerously. 

“He thinks because he gives you other purposes, that it soothes your pain, and if not, well—what remains must be untouchable.”

_That sounds true,_ conspired a vicious ache. Severus stumbled, banging his knees into the hard lip of the tub. He swore, lids squeezing shut, star bursts, throbbing shins, ringing. 

“Enough!” 

He ended the spell with a slash that flung his wand from his sweat-slick grip. It landed at the sink, hitting the mirror hard enough to crack it and possibly chip the wand’s own wood. He wished again, with more volatility this time, that he could strangle the shade he could hear _smirking_ and feel it distend, pop it, expel nothing more substantial than bile and pus and stench, and be done with it. 

“He’s accepted your unhappiness as a given by calling it ‘peculiarity,’ ‘surliness,’ and ‘eccentricity.’ And he has you believing it, too, so you do nothing to serve yourself, as it never serves him. A pity.”

“Why do you want me to hate him?,” he hissed, finally snapping open his eyes. Just like in the kitchen, he lost a small increment of fear and challenged the mirror. In it was the masked figure, too tall to be viewed above its middle and its gesturing, veiny hands. Still, he knew that it was excited. 

“I only want what you want,” it recited like it’d done so many times before.

“Sterger!,” Severus commanded. The demon shivered and replied, delighted. 

“Finally! Civility!”

“Go to hell! Explain!”

“Both?,” it huffed. 

“Explain!,” Severus repeated. “The only wizard I’ve ever met with your power is the Dark Lord, but you say you’re different. Why’re you lying?”

“I’ve _never_ lied to you.” 

“That hardly makes you _trustworthy_.”

Behind Severus, the showerhead rumbled and streamed steaming water into the tub, which he had kept filled with St. John’s wort and yarrow. The dried herbs floated on the rising water's surface, darkening and unfurling to make his fairy repelling tea. It had been his most consistent treatment, to bath regularly in potions, hoping to superstitiously ward off evil. 

He watched the bath tinge and pick up the lamplight. The reflection didn’t move from the sink mirror, as per usual giving the tub space. Severus had his system, and stepped in, still dressed, winning within the barrier. Once his feet soaked and the skin there began to pucker, he continued probing. 

“Why,” he sneered at the mirror, sweating through his shirt, “must you turn me against Dumbledore? What are your plans against him? Why use me?”

“I have never only acted to spite him. I hardly claim to care for him, either. For one, he heads this sore on my side. For another, he has too much sway without the humility to match. Nobody who has never been made a servant should have servants.” 

“Then why not torture him!” Severus thrashed to face the mirror fully under the shower, sopping hair pasted to his face, eyes wild, body wound tightly. “Torment him!”

“There’s an option.”

_Yes!,_ he thought, mind whirring. Finally, something gave after two years—finally, some ground gained! A glimpse of freedom!

“Play with _his_ dreams! Run _him_ ragged! Walk _his_ body to wander the Scottish hills! Why break _me_ ?! Why _me?!_ What have I _done_ for you?!”

“Given me a lovely idea, for one,” it beamed. 

Severus rolled his eyes nastily and scoffed at the demon’s idiocy. He stuck his head under the hot spray and ranted, “You can’t mean that after all this time, you’ve never even entertained the notion to plague a stronger wizard than—.”

_Stop! You idiot!,_ lurched his gut. _You’d sic this madness on Albus Dumbledore?!_

He shut off the shower whip quick, now wet to the skin, incredulous at his own nearsightedness. Sighing in the close heat, he sunk down to sit, stretching still clothed in the water, submerged up to the waist. He stewed, hanging head cushioned on a pedestal of his joined palms, black hair curling at its ends as it frizzed. He made a bust, melting into the bath, pouring handfuls of steeped leaves over his head, scrubbing them in, cursing himself, working the juice into all his visible skin. 

The lamps dimmed on Severus portraying the fool. 

_I nearly ruined…everything...to be left alone…_

The lights went out with the demon’s irritated sigh. His bath turned ice cold in an instant, forcing him out swearing, splashing water on the floor, and sending him slipping to the bowed, open door. He fumbled for his wand by the sink, found it and dried himself, and lead with it into his bedroom.

Severus stood in the doorway, facing his “guest.” It resumed its post in the corner, rocking hard. The chair banged against the stone walls, wood groaning worryingly, as if about to break.

The wizard held steady, steadier after sleep and steeping and biting back. He managed some sense of self-control, knowing that he could come to on the grounds, or in the forest, or with the wolf in his dreams, or in that garbage room—and not caring. 

He wouldn’t think or say another word against Dumbledore. He couldn’t give it—Sterger—the satisfaction, not while mystified by whatever license Severus’s wants could lend it. 

“There, that! Why do you protect him?!” A spidery finger pointed at him from the crown, guiding the others to turn and join it. 

Severus stood, defiant and accused, more spirited than he’d felt at his own Ministry trial. Feeling this reminded him of the Headmaster coming to his aide then, vying for his freedom. Unused to it but finding it necessary, Severus addressed his resentments with gratitude. He needed the relief of once having help to suppress the urge to tear something down.

It shook Sterger down to its bare, cracked and frozen green feet. The wizard curled a spiteful lip. 

“You won’t get what you want from me,” he hissed.

“Then neither will you gain from yourself and your misplaced loyalty!,” it raged. 

Sterger shuddered in its chair like a cauldron ready to blow. Severus didn’t know whether to surge forward and take a chance, attack, or step away in fear of it exploding. He planted his feet, instead, and went on:

“I’ll never be loyal to _you_ , creature. You’d do best to crawl back into whatever hole you slithered out of.”

It bucked, as if catching a forceful blow from gods knew where. “Why! I come to admire your resilience and here I suffer from it, as well.” 

Then it dragged its masked head to the side and sprawled a twisted hand on its chest, as if heartsore. “Severus...you will never be free. Never, if you only resent those who have no hold over you—children, dead men, others lost in their pain.”

“I’m done with your babbling. It won’t work.”

He made to climb back into bed, thinking he could banish the demon as he might an awful nightmare. It made no moves to stop him. It hadn’t the whole day. His body was his own to carry between his quilt and the mattress, to settle in and mock Sterger with his little pantomime. He fluffed his deflated pillows—not much more than brown-pocked cases with a handful of goose feathers between them. Dropping his head on them and staring down past his feet, he shoved the demon’s words far and aside, and only glared. 

He vowed not to give in. This was all a plot. Severus wouldn’t destroy everything to spare himself. He would stay yelling down, stay close, stay narrow, and stave off this eager call for chaos. 

“You’d choose bondage? You claim your own purpose, don’t you? You needn’t serve any masters to remain loyal to your cause.”

“I won’t destroy Dumbledore for you. If I can hold you off, I will, even if that—if that means keeping you,” he trailed off in a whisper, although every word was heard in the cramped bedroom. 

“Suffering is easy,” it sighed in return. “Being owed is a habit, same as meanness and spite. Fulfillment, however…”

For a flash, Severus was transported out of his humid room, and lie back, shivering, in the foggy night under a black sky made limitless by its stars. They twinkled down at him, as cold and distant as the twinkle in any eye, less human, more infinite, and he was dwarfed by the weight of cosmic possibility. He thought shakily that if he were a different man, with a different life, he might be tempted to reach up into that sky and feel something new to make his own. 

He thought about destiny. He thought about being a boy, wanting more for himself. He thought about Lily. And then he crashed back in the burning wreck of his soul into an exhausted, tea-seasoned body—lamps extinguished, almost alone.

Sterger glared back at him and trembled while Severus looked on, holding painfully still. And then with a wincing gasp, the eyes of the deer skull mask began to pour coppery red. At first, the wizard gaped, thinking it began crying blood, but rather than tears, the pour resolved into hair—long, knotted with grime, perfumed with curse-fire and lemons. 

Severus gasped and looked away. 

“Can you even look at the woman you do this for? Or are you so ruined by guilt that you’re unmade by fear of her scorn? So here, in the dark, you’ll grieve her memory and the future you imagined with her that you and people other than you and things both lesser and greater than you aborted. And when the sun rises, the living human fades to,” it gestured to Severus, “a shade.”

“I…,” he failed to counter. There fled his strength again. He knew that Sterger knew him, if he accepted it was real and that it only spoke the truth. 

“She’s already gone. This future is already gone. Why mourn it with your life, but then live pettily out of scorn for your imposed punishments?” 

“You’re supposed t—,” Severus croaked, and then swallowed around his building tears. “Y-you’re supposed to show my regrets. You said—.”

It rumbled. “Some regrets you’ve yet to realize. I reflect those, same as any.”

“Like what?”

“I have explained: your servitude. Ah, I can already hear you think it—.”

Severus forged on anyway, face wet from crying, nose running, elbows weak as he propped himself up on them to better meet his tormentor’s mask. The red hair hung low out of the skull, spilling over its hands clutching the chair’s armrests. Hair covered it like copper ivy, greyed by the ash of the collapsed Potter house. The lemon smell didn’t choke him, and so he sighed deeply, more tears filling and draining from warm, raw eyes. 

He said: “I’d be in prison without this. I should be—imprisoned—for what I’ve done. I should be dead. What am I without this life, without—. If I walk away, I’m nothing. I’ll be reduced to even less than…what can I do for her then?”

“Your pride, your sins, and your loyalty are all great things,” the demon shared, its crown opening as if receiving, ready to grab hold. “Like your skill, like your cruelty. If you tie yourself to all your bigger parts, no matter how horrible you feel they are, then you can never feel too small or too helpless. I understand.”

Severus hiccuped and closed his eyes, feeling treasonous for now finding its voice comforting. It was consistent in his misery. He never could resist attaching to consistently terrible things. 

_Wait!,_ cried his gut instincts. They often kept him alive when the rest of him was prepared for loss. _You’re giving in! Fight it!_

“Why even argue,” he asked, either of himself or Sterger. Perhaps both. “You’ve proven you can take what you want. You can put me to sleep,” he coughed, clearing his throat, “you can know anything. You can puppet my body until you’re done, and then cast me aside—leave me to die or, or return me to my business—.”

“And see you die too young as a result.”

“Then let it be that! I can’t be toyed with indefinitely, since I’m just...just human. Only human.” 

He lay down in his covers, curling onto his side. His tears kept streaming, leaving his ear wet and warm against the pillowcase. For a few seconds, he listened to his heartbeat and his breathing and the demon’s as well. 

“I’ll die eventually,” he murmured, feeling the tug of sleep. Severus only felt sleep now, besides the deep-rooted sorrow and the fluttering around his grudge, itself subdued by his depression. “I’ll die one day, and even gladly, if my life is this…”

The chair creaked and tapped the floor. Sterger shushed him, “I know. You will die, and gladly even, if in the moment I first heard your twisted, atrophied, petty little soul, I had seen you for the bug you were made. If I had let far less interesting men crush you under their machinations, without even thinking of your causes—.”

“So you crush me first?,” he retorted. The wizard felt the persistent kick of spite and let it speak for him. “That’s your grand plan, oh great, eternal wisdom?” 

Sterger chuckled, and Severus grit his teeth, feeling a brush of cold hands by his feet. Doting, like the time it first buttoned his cuffs. 

“I crush the stone to extract the ore. I facet the gem to make it sparkle. You confuse your refinement for your destruction, little man.”

Severus simply let his eyelids slide down, pulled to rest. The mattress sucked him into the trench his body dug in it. Sleep came in pieces. First, he felt the warm breeze from the dream world. Then, he anticipated the drink of cool spring water that came before the rest. 

“Finally,” the demon chuffed. Was it relieved? “You’ll at least surrender to sleep.”

“Yes, so you can torture me with my dreams,” he sniped, letting it happen anyway. 

“Hm. I’ll be honest,” and a cold knuckle pushed back a lock of his stringy hair. It numbed his ear as it touched it gently. “I would truly enjoy punishing you to a glorious snap, but as you are, it won’t be glorious. It can’t be. You’ve not enough power or force.”

He opened his eyes again to stare into the dark beside his bed, until the cold withdrew. 

“It would really be crushing a bug,” it said. “A quiet crunch and a sad husk. Sleep. I won't disturb you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“‘Make me believe you,’” it rejoindered with Severus’s voice, before promising in its echoing baritone, “I will leave the doors in your mind as they are now. Close them, if you wish.”

Then it returned to its corner the next moment, without traveling the space between. It was by his bedside, and then across the room. Glad for the space, Severus closed his eyes again, and resumed the slipping inward, toward dreams. 

“I meant it when I said if staying kills you, I would rather you leave. My goal is your evolution. Only you try to tempt me otherwise.” 

Impossibly, Severus said nothing. He sighed, rolled over, and returned to sleep. 

_Tall, arched windows set with iridescent glass hung in the mica-peppered brick walls of this building, each pane clean and perfectly cut. They extolled the peachy rays of the sun that either set or rose far off on the horizon. Said sun warmed a field of white-pearled wildflowers to a rosy gold, while a cool breeze poured smoothly over the rolling grasses, suggesting a river._

_Severus came to in the shadowed corner of this building’s top floor. He was clean, washed and fragrant with potions, still swimming in his thin nightshirt. That usually feverish organ offered no complaints, housed peaceably in his well-rested body. He could move immediately to his hands and knees to creep along the pitted, concrete floor._

_He hummed, curious at his surroundings. Sunlight streamed through a hole in the ceiling lined with cables like from a forgotten crane. It fell through to the building’s ground level via an uneven chunk missing from the concrete, with mossy ropes dangling just inside it, frayed, in a curtain around that corroded patch._

_Severus crawled, the low ceiling brushing his back, and parted the heavy ropes to see only one room underneath him, full of trash but empty of people. He pulled away, and kept crawling until he reached the point of a window’s arch. He peered down and saw the edge of a sea of white flowers court the stone foundation._

_He returned to the stout room, and noticed the top rung of a metal ladder, bent rebar sunk and cemented into the brick. He powered toward it, cursing at his knees hitting on the hard floors. Glad for a way down, he held on and started his feet on it, squeezing himself into the entrance to a caged service lift. He landed, the spare metal box bouncing from its pulleys._

_Severus, conjuring his father’s mill in his mind, looked for a control box. He found a hand crank and checked himself for his wand. Empty-handed, he moved to the crank lever, painted with rust with a firm, rubber grip. Grunting, he shoved it, forcing the gears to grind with a splitting shriek._

_Wincing, he slammed his weight into it. Again, then again, banging off more rust from the machinery that sprinkled and stained his feet. Eventually, he freed the crank to turn. Gripping it, Severus heaved and towed himself to the ground._

Severus stood framed in the window, squinting, a hand shading his eyes. He had traveled the lengths of the factory floor, and only saw it piled with broken things: tea cups missing handles, shattered saucers; one mountain of cracked vials and their melted stoppers heaped next to it; punctured pitchers, buckets with hole; and so many hobbled chairs and stools standing on their last legs. Nothing worked without needing fixing. 

Wandering the strange mill, Severus found himself fully lucid, although unable to truly control the dream. He couldn’t wake up, and supposed he was waiting for his body to do it for him. The warmth and color struck him familiarly enough that he didn’t panic. Truthfully, he relaxed. 

Although he remembered it in snatches around sobbing and fervent bodies, he knew this place. He returned here every night.

Bored, he gave it all his back and contemplated going outside. Given the things confronting him in the waking world, he needn’t rush. While testing the patinated bronze latch on a hinged pane, he noticed a rustling in the field. The white flowers, pinkish in the light, began to bleed royal purple. Pressing his nose to the glass, he saw the nearest flowers morph from something like daisies to a more redolent bloom: wolfsbane. 

He exhaled his shuddering breath, clouding the window. Hastily, he wiped it with his shirtsleeve and watched the meadow, nostrils flared. A small, grassy mound shivered at a distance and, bursting open, hatched a head of greying brown hair. Bare shoulders followed.

Severus stared, already unlatching the pane with a quick click, shoulders tight with anticipation. He had never encountered this conjured wolf while fully in control. He recalled other senses more than sight being filled—hearing, feel, taste. 

He caught himself slipping out onto a ledge, toes brushing flowers, and jerked to a stop. Flushing beet red, he retreated inside, shut the pane, and locked it. 

_Control yourself! You can now,_ Severus chastised himself, scraping his heavy hair back from his face to scowl at his reflection. 

The glass was the only surface clean enough to show his face. Even then, so much light showered the outside that he barely saw himself against the purple swath of the field. So, he posed, arms crossed, sneering at the flowers when they spat out the werewolf on the mill’s stone ledge. 

The wolf clambered onto it, silver-striped limbs flexing, hurrying to escape the aconite’s burn. Lupin got his feet under him and unbent from a fearful hunch under the telling pink sky. He scratched his unkempt head and stretched, dusted with hair, and—to Severus’s embarrassment—naked as the day he was born. The wizard’s gaze dipped down to the arch in the other man’s nude back before whipping away, mortified. 

He swallowed to unstick his throat. He rallied, refusing to be put off by a bit of nudity like some blushing maid. He’d seen other naked bodies. He’d known this one, at least, in his dreams. And this was only that: a dream. 

Looking back, he stumbled from the window, stomping through torn books and broken cups, and spun away—then back, scowling, then away again, beating the sputter from his chest. Lupin had turned around to face him. 

Severus hacked, face ablaze, to see the werewolf—all—at once. Again, compulsively, his dark eyes flicked downward and raced up again, wide on the werewolf’s puzzled face. 

He had only—felt—the wolf’s endowments, never seen them, and never while possessed of his right mind. Severus blinked owlishly at Lupin’s cut face, the other man’s brow deeply furrowed as he groped the glass. 

Tentatively, as if unsure, Lupin canted his head, tilting waves of hair into his eyes, and blew it away. He crooked a finger and tapped the pane. Severus glared, shooing him, jabbing a finger out at the field. 

“Go! Back into the wild!,” he snapped, imagining chasing off a feral dog come begging. It didn’t feel far off the mark.

“Snape?” came the muffled reply. “No…”

_This is ridiculous. He isn’t really here,_ Severus asserted, feeling foolish for being spooked. 

Loathing the idea of a fantasy besting him, he stalked back to the window, unlatched it, yanked it open. He held himself imperiously over Lupin, who only leaned away slightly to frown at him. The wolf then, as unthinkingly as always when not trapped in his rictus of indecision, lifted his chapped hands to Severus’s face, as if to cradle it. 

Alarmed, the wizard slapped the faltering touch away. The liberty appalled him, he felt, bearing down on the vision of the naked werewolf as did the sweet sun and the tender wind. It appalled him to have been felt by a bane of his existence, to have been coddled and coaxed. 

_How would he like it?,_ thought Severus, affronted, and in that vein, he closed the gap in the flower-scented air, and grasped the wolf’s chin. 

Startled by the realness in that chin, he tilted it back and ran his narrowed eyes over the olive drab ones, the scars, the shadowed cheeks, the furry brow. Lupin froze, like a rabbit before a snake, and Severus smirked, glad to have command for once, running an inquisitive thumb along the slack jawline to feel the rasp of returning stubble. 

He then lifted his free hand to feel his own, grown out chin hairs, uneven and prickling. He went days without shaving now, and thought, if he could repair to this mill every night, he might have the energy to in the mornings. He could stand off with the demon once or twice a day if, when he slept, he could lay among flowers and rubbish, goading Lupin, who now reached for Severus’s wrist.

Severus frowned and switched hands, knocking Lupin’s away again. 

“My turn,” he grumbled, enjoying the wolf’s obvious disquiet. He quirked a brow at the man’s confused expression, then, feeling almost sprightly, decided to satisfy a niggling curiosity. 

“Hold still,” he said precisely, laying both hands along that jaw. Lupin, ever the pushover, did just that. Severus leaned in, stretching his thumbs to catch the wolf’s peeling bottom lip. 

“Sn—!”

“Shush,” Severus interrupted. Worming his thumbnails up, pressing the corners of Lupin’s mouth, he snipped, “Open,” and was given a hesitant view of the werewolf’s teeth. 

Huffing, he went straight for the man’s canines with exacting focus. Then his embarrassment, smugness, and residual resentment parted around an almost childish wonder. Severus pushed the pads of his thumbs against the teeth, closing in to see the flesh dimple on the dull points. 

A heavy pant bathed his cool, dry hands with fuggy breath. 

“They aren’t sharp,” he murmured, awed. He had grown sure they were.

After months of feeling the occasional sharp nip in the dreams, he’d come to wonder if Lupin had fangs. He didn’t miss the irony of that question, knowing many students were convinced Severus sported them himself. Staring at the other man’s mouth at meals, awaiting a laugh with his greying head thrown back, he had remained foiled by smiles or amused puffs, never guffaws. Lupin didn’t laugh freely, mostly rationing out his expressions, particularly if he saw Severus looking.

“Wha—re!?” Lupin spat out his fingers and waved him back. Severus went, not only drifting apart with the staying arm, but also returning inside. He closed the pane and clicked it shut again. 

“Lupin,” he said, giving a businesslike nod. “As you were.”

“Snape! Gods, it really is you,” the werewolf gasped beyond the glass. Severus snorted. 

“Who else would it be? Sirius Black?”

Lupin went grey. “G—no. No, I’m glad it’s not.” 

The rest Severus was sure he wasn’t meant to hear, as Lupin muttered it under his breath: “If it’s a toss-up between two maniacs, I’ll take the shithead who chose the right side...I think. I’m not sure.”

_Of if I’m on the “right side”? Nobody is. Or is it of if I’m the better option?_

Severus chose not to bother comparing himself to Black. They might both be madmen. He’d rather not have to silently compete for his own dream’s attention. 

He also disliked how this Lupin called him names. In previous dreams, he had always called him Severus, often breathing it in his ear while one arm held him across the chest.

_The gravity of the other man drew him close and held him down. Secure, driving, they clung and shook together, his thighs stretched apart for mingled sweat to drip tickling, easing the slide of the wolf’s knees between his own to push them wider. He let him in, eager to shatter on the craggy cliffs of him, insistent, even proud, hips burning closer teasing the stab, rough palms scraping down his belly, massaging the jut of his—._

“Why the hells are you naked,” Severus barked, chest thudding, scowl black as his frigid eyes. “Cover yourself!” 

Lupin looked down at himself like he hadn’t noticed his nudity. He jumped in such a panic, covering his groin and ducking away from the window, Severus derisively thought to offer a leaf. Having his knowledge of good and evil, the werewolf cleared his throat just out of the dreamer’s sight. 

“Well, I didn’t—ahem!” Lupin eventually managed to sneak his head back into view, and looked at Severus with a pallid nod. “Do excuse that. Given the way this has gone before, I’d have to imagine it’s for...easy access. Why aren’t you?”

“Why aren’t I what?”

Lupin freed a hand to point at Severus’s grey shirt. 

“Naked?”

He saw the glimpse of himself against the vibrant wolfsbane, long-limbed and sallow in fluttering grey, which turned him yellower. The ends of his hair, what part he could see clearly, flipped outward after drying from his bath, and brushed his shoulders. One such shoulder slinked out of the nightshirt, the loosened laces letting it out to catch the rosy light. 

_A sharp nip made him sigh and push back on the delicious stretch. He shuddered and welcomed more as more was given, stroking the fingers wrapped around his throat, urging them dizzily._

_“Yes, that’s right,” growled the wolf, squeezing out a moan, bucking, breaking him open, biting his back. He must have fangs—razor sharp, to tear, to skin him. Severus felt every nip spiraling down into his core, coiling it tighter. Those teeth must be daggers._

_He whined, resting his drenched forehead in the crook of his arm, smothering the desperate sound._

_“No, don’t. Let me hear it.”_

Severus pushed a fist into his flip flopping stomach, and peevishly pinched the shirt, recovering his slip of skin. Looking down his nose, he drawled, “I suppose I’ve finally been allowed a scrap of dignity.” 

“Not enough going around, I see,” Lupin replied, growing resigned. 

Severus watched him for a minute, the look fading from dissection to casual regard as he saw the wolf turn ponderous. There it went, the insular expressions. Letting the werewolf lose himself to thought, he wandered along to the next window, taking in the unobstructed view of the meadow. 

Far off, he saw the lavender shadow of a forest, and beyond that, blue mountains. He wondered, not for the first time but the most worriedly, where he had ended up. Had his mind created this place? Was it the demon’s invention? Or had he been here once, in the real world? If he dreamed much longer, he considered traveling here. Maybe he could find more answers that way. 

He heard a tick, and looked askance at Lupin, following with a hand flat on the glass. Severus rolled his eyes. The naked man barely seemed present as he shambled wistfully, so pale it impressed the wizard to see him standing. 

One scarred hand shielded his crotch. Severus, tired of feeling missish, stared at it openly. His eyebrows shot up at the swing of dusky pink escaping the modest hand.

Again, seeing more than feeling added a whole new dimension of surreality. He had to either admit that this dream, drawn by a powerful entity, simply knew the intimate details of the wolf’s body and now, so did Severus; or accept, with equal shock, that these were his mind’s assumptions. He didn’t want to think he believed on this level that his sickly nemesis was hung. The alternative, though, was that he must be. 

Now, staring felt like a mistake, but he committed to it. Maybe it could scare Lupin away.

“You know,” started the wolf. Severus sucked his teeth, arms crossed, leg bouncing, deeply agitated, wishing he could wake up and be done with this. 

“What now, you exasperating—.”

“You’d have more dignity, in general, if you didn’t constantly throw it away to settle an invisible score.”

Severus stopped mid-insult and stood agog at the werewolf’s stunned look. Not to be outdone, he strode up to the glass and threw up his hand, with its longer, craft-stained fingers to press opposite Lupin’s. 

The other man’s face changed as Severus bared his teeth, preparing to vent his acrimonious spleen. He took on a measure of disdain himself, curling his own lip back, green-gold eyes snapping, shoulders hunched. Then, daringly, he challenged Severus with his second hand, dropping his modesty where it hung to slap the calloused palm against his through the pane. 

The smack rattled the window’s brass latch. Severus, sweating, didn’t flinch. Now Lupin bore on with bare audacity. 

“You heard me,” he said quietly. “Maybe if you didn’t harass others and leap on every chance to humiliate them for a whim or any, old imagined slight—maybe then you might be a bit more _dignified_.”

Severus, shocked, floundered at a loss for words. Firstly, confronted again by the man’s full nudity, he had affixed his gaze to Lupin’s face, and revolted, when meeting the flashing eyes, at the slow creep of warmth into his cheeks. 

Secondly, while the barb didn’t eviscerate—he’d heard worse even earlier that evening—it did sting. And Lupin rarely stung. He rarely quibbled back at all, at least directly. He had his little in-jokes with himself and his classes. That was all.

This wasn’t the comforting hand from the last year. This was even more than the newer, taking Lupin, the one that exorcised pain with pleasure. What breed of dream was this?

“But, well, who am I to talk,” the wolf chuffed, looking down, while Severus looked on, rooted to the spot. “I’ve swallowed so much of my pride, I’ve probably shat it all out by now.”

“L—,” but Lupin interrupted, cutting glare back on him.

“The only place I don’t swallow is here,” and then, with a rueful quirk of his lips, not quite a grin, but the mournful lover of one. “Apparently, that’s your job.” 

Severus dropped his hands first to clutch at his clothes, blustering, “How d—I’ve never!” 

_Lupin remembers the previous dreams,_ it dawned. Each time had started from a blank slate, for him. They had never harkened back to the other times before. The things Severus had said and done and had done to him—unconscionable. 

He fought for composure, although he had to give ground and turn from the window entirely. He stood, flushed, counting his breaths with the piles of broken trinkets, fists balled in his shirt. 

His stomach cramped—no, gods, not his stomach. Heat pooled, licking down behind his navel and sluicing into his cock. He had been half-hard all while Lupin spoke, lost in his false memories and the glittering glare. Severus covered his shame-scorched face, then remembered he had an audience and stuck his hands by his sides. 

He bit out, “I’m done with this. I have _better_ things to worry about than you,” to Lupin’s sarcastic surprise.

“Do you? I really must be dreaming.” 

_Right,_ Severus recalled, rashly plucking the drape of his shirt around the tenting bulge, cursing. _This is all a dream. This is_ my _dream. I have control!_

_Except I don’t want it,_ whispered the traitorous heat and, above that, sighed the pliant, plush surrender that first tugged him into sleep. 

“Snape?” Severus flinched, covering himself despite having clothes.

“Fuck you, Lupin,” he answered. 

“Well, I could make the obvious joke, but see, that just seems crass. Never mind that I’m, er—what’re you doing? You can turn around.” 

_If I do, you idiot, I’m finished,_ he thought desperately.

This dream was potent. They all were, in Severus’s estimation, but the nuance of this one unveiled real desire. It horrified him to feel he really wanted this man. But the addition of sting and wit joined the other dreams into one person, standing behind him against the serene backdrop save a field of poison flowers. It was intoxicating.

He could never look at the waking Lupin again.

There were parts of him tasked with fighting and pain and wresting control. These hard set aspects had been strained to near breaking by his haunting, and being stretched so thin, allowed his other colors to show through. Factions of his soul that craved comfort and guidance and support, all human needs were doubled, tripled beyond the norm by near constant denial. 

Severus didn’t abide by wanting. Wanting and fear were the core of his struggles. Fear he could mostly suffer, with all the bilious hatred and heartbreak and withering it required. The wanting—for freedom, and now, for grounding, for fire, again for comfort—he had to let pass. 

He would rather be evil with loss than unchosen for affection, when of course he’d go unchosen. Expecting otherwise was asking the high tide never to ebb. Of course it withdrew. Of course.

“Snape, are you alright?”

_Damn him. At least it’s only a fantasy._ He was a complicated man, but not an impossible one. 

Severus turned slowly, approached the window, and undid the latch with a smart clack. The pane swung open on the fragrant wind. He breathed it in, enjoying the renewed rosy warmth outside of the cooler mill, and reached out, touching the baking brick. Stepping up to be level with the ledge, he looked down at Lupin, allowing his gaze to soften, to heat. 

Unsmiling, he touched the sun-glimmering silver in his hair, touching his temples. He watched the strands wink. Then he invited the wolf, closely in low tones, “Come in.” 

Lupin took the second to catch his meaning, then ogled, furry brows hitting his hairline. 

“T—,” the wolf wheezed. Severus returned inside, leaving the way open behind him. “You mean to sleep with you?”

The wizard, struck by nerves, frowned viciously over his shoulder. He said, face pink, shirt slipping again, “Or leave. I’ll not waste good sleep on—!”

But Lupin had already bound through the window. A few long strides brought him butting against Severus, chest to chest. The wizard held himself still to let him investigate, taking deep breaths trying to calm himself. He allowed Lupin to bring those hands up to his face, trailing the cocoa smell of dark chocolate and clean soap. 

Those fingers splayed along his cheeks, feverishly hot. The hands traveled up to cup his ears, muffling his hearing. 

Lupin mouthed, “It’s really you.” 

Severus nodded once, pertly. 

“And you want this?” He asked this disbelieving, settling from shock to a cynical smirk. “Of course you wouldn’t. I don’t. You aren’t even real.”

But he kept exploring as he said this, rubbing his fingers against Severus’s mouth. He stood, fists perched on his thighs, unsure what to do. He was caught off guard. He didn’t expect his wet dream to need convincing. 

He twitched open a fist to bridge the sliver of warm space between their bodies. However, just as he brushed a trail of fine hairs, Lupin shifted his stance, pressing even closer, laying himself flat against Severus. The dreamer started, stepped back, and just as quickly, Lupin whipped a hand down to grab his hip. 

“If you don’t mind, Snape,” he grunted, sliding a knee into the valley of his legs. “I’d like to see how _you’re_ all working. _Woe unto the farmer._ ”

Severus hissed, looking down, seeing their dusty feet. They trampled shoots of new grass poking up through cracks in the concrete—the view blocked, gradually, by Lupin’s latticed thigh pushing up the hem of his shirt. 

Fully hard now, he supposed he’d answered Lupin’s inane question. Severus’s erect cock perched along the naked thigh, peeking from the folds of grey cotton, flushing deep red against the pearly scars. It contrasted the wolf’s own, limp prick, hanging as it was in the store window, completely ignored by its owner. The other man didn’t mind himself as he led Severus to sidestep rubbish and leaned him against a wall.

“You _do_ want this,” he breathed. “Unbelievable.” 

The potions master shook at the return of hands to his face. He enjoyed the wool of hot skin skirting his neck. Employing his own quivering hands, he forged into the breach, holding his breath. He slowly grasped Lupin’s wrists, curling his fingers over one by one. 

Black met gold. Severus held Lupin’s glinting eye as he guided his suddenly lax hands. He brought one back to his mouth and sighed shakily into the palm, quite by accident. He only meant to feel it there, and yet out of some form of payback, Lupin covered his mouth, worked the thumb between his thin lips as Severus had his fuller ones. Riveted, he pressed down on Severus’s tongue. 

“This damned thing,” Lupin said, equal parts amused, fascinated, and begrudging. “I'm sick of it.” 

Severus, who had placed the other hand around his throat, hiccuped at a sudden clench. The wolf’s eyes watched him struggle. He leaned back, gripped by the neck, Lupin’s other thumb sliding in his mouth to touch his teeth, again as Severus had done. And then, shocked by the pulse of strength in the next, testing squeeze, he shivered and bit down. 

Lupin gasped. 

“Oh! Oh, wait,” the wolf panted, letting go, staring down at himself, chest blushing. “Oh, no, that’s—.”

Severus followed his eyes. The sunlight from the window, blocked by the wall, only cut across a bit of Lupin’s leg down to his ankle. The rest was in shadow. However, the mill was wide and light enough for that to fail at concealing the fill of Lupin’s cock. It laid itself, thick and heavy, against Severus’s hip. A drop of precum cried from the head, wicked away by the bunching cloth. 

“I didn’t think…,” the werewolf hedged, looking stunned. 

“Because you talk too much,” he returned. In retaliation, Lupin groped his sides and chuckled airily. 

“You’re so skinny. You would never tell from the robes.”

“You’re stalling.” A hand came back over his mouth, while Lupin spoke at the other hand roaming down to Severus’s belly. 

“Hush. Your voice is—I’m trying to focus.” Severus watched sans sympathy with dark, heavy-lidded eyes, humming agreeably into the palm. Lupin’s arousal twitched against him, leaking more for his clothes to sop up. Severus hummed again, louder.

“Shit.” Lupin rolled his hips, seeking. Severus arched and the man found purchase under his shirt, against his skin. 

The wolf groaned wantonly. For a moment, Severus never had a tough day in his life. 

Welling with self-satisfaction, he gave his attention to the strange kneading of his stomach. He had some fat from age, inactivity, months of quick, junky meals between the rich feasts at the castle. Lupin seemed to like that. He pushed on his belly until the heel of his hand massaged the root of Severus’s aches. 

“You’re so soft here. I’m jealous.” 

Then the wolf grabbed all the folds of his rucked nightshirt impatiently, pulling it up to his chest. The hand used freed his mouth. Lupin closed in on the shirt covetously, like a freezing traveler did a fire. Then he peered into Severus’s reddened, smug face, determined. 

“Hold this up so I can see better.” Severus eyed him and delightedly refused. 

“It’s my dream. Hold it yourself,” he volleyed, groping greedily until Lupin jumped. Grinning, he wrapped his slow grip around the wolf’s heavy cock and gave it one, long stroke from base to tip. Lupin parted his lips, sighing blissfully, while Severus worked the last bit of give from him until he smacked the wizard’s hipbone hard as goblin-made steel.

The grab returned to Severus’s throat, to the man’s relief. The push on his belly finally, wonderfully, became a fist around his throbbing prick. 

He whispered, “About time,” only to curse when the hand left again, when both hands left to stop his own stroking. 

“Fuck, Lupin!,” he cried, frustrated. “Please!”

“Christ,” the wolf hissed, eyes glazed over. He continued with a thick swallow, “If I wake up like this, from doing this, to you, I’ll—.”

“If I ever wake up from this place, I’m going to find you and I’m going to _end you._ ”

Lupin buried his face in the crook of Severus’s neck and breathed deeply, “My god, you smell so _good_ ,” and said, voice trembling, “Keep going!,” thrusting into his hand. Severus accommodated, bringing Lupin’s fist back around himself. They both moaned at the other’s first hard strokes.

“Yes!,” Severus praised. He didn’t need much more to come. He was so _close._

This was the realest dream he had had to date, the most fulfilling while also being the most _frustrating._ He felt he could burn up in fever. He’d never feel the cold again, but only if Lupin didn’t scare off, didn’t hesitate, didn’t _stop_. 

“You can’t be turned in dreams, yeah?” Lupin ran his licked lips along Severus’s bare shoulder and sunk his teeth in. The wizard jerked. 

“I’m—!,” he cried out, throwing his free arm, which made its business by Lupin’s curls, fully around the man’s back, crushing them together until not a gulp of air could slip them. He wanted to drown in this. He wanted to die like this, die the smallest, most distilled death, pure and liquid gold over the werewolf’s thorough hand. 

And then Lupin stopped again. He just held him by the base of his weeping cock and squeezed brutally. It was an excellent grip and a monstrous one. Severus vibrated, taut between thanking him and killing him dead. 

Severus sobbed, unraveling, “What!?” 

Lupin urged Severus’s stroking faster, nose in his neck, lifting his shirt. He kept their joined, furious hands aimed at his soft stomach, like he meant to finish alone.

“You b—!” He meant to yell, “You bastard!,” but only managed those few sounds before Lupin drove them into the wall, sliding feet kicking away trash. They made the windows shake, and their gasps echoed in the mill. 

“Don’t you _dare_ say ‘beast,’” Lupin rumbled. Severus arched, as the growl was so close to his ear, he felt it roll through his bones like thunder. “You don’t get off while disrespecting me! I’ll leave you here, just like this!”

Another wicked squeeze. Severus nodded, clinging to him, “Yes, just like that!”

“Say sorry.” Their legs shook.

“No, please! I’m almost there,” he begged instead, afraid of falling over. He held on, and Lupin crushed in, and a moment spun suspended in the quiet, listening air. 

“Apologize,” and Lupin smelled him again, languidly, transcendent on the edge of climax. The tip of his nose ran up the length of Severus’s neck, and Lupin hung his soft, hoarse murmur flush against his ear:

“Apologize to me. Right now. I need to hear it.”

Severus, reduced to actual tears by how much he _wanted_ and how close he was to having, wrapped all of himself around the other man, thinking he’d take pity, that he’d take nice and soft and the hot brand of Lupin’s come on his belly, that he’d take all of it if he could want freely like this forever, and have, and have, and have. 

“I’m sorry,” he sniffled. 

* * *

Remus woke with a strangled cry, rolling onto his stomach. He bucked, blinded by pink light. He rutted against his sheets.

The scarf he’d fallen asleep beside scrunched against his cheek, twisted on the pillow. He shoved it under his nose and dragged in a pealing breath. Poised on the peak of it, he slid his clammy hand down his body, under his hips, until he hit his erection. He shivered, grinding into his palm, still half in the dream.

_“I’m sorry.”_

“No!,” he hollered, remembering now in vivid detail that it was Severus Snape’s voice in his head, watery and small and eager. He couldn’t—. 

“Dammit!”

Remus came. He rode his hand to a swearing, ruined finish. Aftershocks tripped up from his curling toes, and he collapsed onto his bed, blood booming in his ears, every crying muscle turned to jelly. Mixing with shame, shock, exhilaration, and horror was the realization that he could never meet eyes with Snape again. 

* * *

Elsewhere, Severus opened his eyes and saw dove grey dawn. Staring around himself, struck by the chill, he looked down at his reflection in the clear black of the Great Lake. He saw the deer skull and the awful green pinpricks. 

“You said you’d let me rest,” he told it. Sterger nodded. 

“I did. You walked yourself here.” It rose from the water then, as if instead of reflected, it had been submerged. It poured up in the soft light and hung over him, shaking its head. 

He could see so much of it now, he realized, blinking numbly. Its black hair hung past its feet, ends fanning out in the water, hardly distinguishable from the robes except for an oily sheen. The skull fissured, showing pores, dark and dull brown from marrow already made dust. When it talked, its voice reverberated in the bone. 

“If not for me, you would’ve drowned,” it shared solemnly. 

“...Why?” Severus only wanted to return to sleep. Then again, he was surprised the chilly water didn’t wake him sooner. Worry struggled through his apathy when he realized how far out he had sleepwalked: almost to the waist. 

“You regret your dream, I believe, Severus. It was yours alone. I had no part, as promised, and you regret it.”

It hurt to flash back to. He wanted so deeply and was still sore with it. He wished he’d stayed asleep. Still, he backed out the water, careful of the rocks and critters. Glad it was so early, he figured he would need a side entrance back into the dungeons, to avoid being seen. He didn’t have his wand, so he couldn’t dry himself. He looked to Sterger, who only waited to be asked, floating there above the surface, the misty forest at its back. 

Severus decided he would rather catch the cold. 

“I’ll never have that,” he explained about the dream, although for whose sake, he didn’t know. “We both know my lot in life: bound, petty, and alone.”

The demon didn’t answer. It only let him walk farther away, stop to think, and turn back to it, black eyes ringed with bruises, angry and drained. 

“Next time, let me drown.”

“If that’s what you’d like,” it agreed. Or perhaps it informed, as if Severus might not like to sink into the fraught depths of the lake, and so it wouldn’t let him. He didn’t know.

“It is,” he said anyway, only the spirit knowing if he was lying. The wizard was sure he’d never ask it for the truth, and instead, hiked indoors to prepare for the day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	4. A Progression of Wanting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus yearns.

Remus tugged at his rumpled collar, jaw clenched. The secret passage tucked behind the portrait of the personless Swiss Alps accommodated his moment of bog-headed, nervous vanity. In its high and narrow hall, the dusty, bug-scuttling stones humored his few minutes of muttered curses, his hard-bottomed shoes scuffing the murky, tattered rug that meandered down the passage, and faded into the castle’s coves. 

He preferred this stuffy wedge to the scatter of his quarters. Remus had blearily stumbled from his bedroom, soiled clothes and scarf fuzz glued to his face, stomach, and thighs. Drool crusted and come smeared, he staggered through the sitting room, hunting down a clean _something_ in his luggage, finding holey boxers to clutch to his chest, wincing, wet dream clinging in his every crease. 

Early morning rose all around him in the lightening air, the cool and easy breathing of the pale sun washing over him and the worn furniture. He’d been using a winter cloak as a curtain, and it had fallen overnight, leaving him shaking, squinting and exposed to the distant peek of Hogsmeade over the hills. 

He felt confronted by the day and, embarrassed, hid. He scrubbed himself raw in the shower, panting in the heavy steam until every growling, “Please!,” and Snape’s broken sorry drained out of him. Then he fled to the dingiest nook he could remember, determined to disappear until classes’ start. 

_Another trip to the kitchens,_ he thought, then caught himself in a suit of armor. He turned this way and that, leaned in close to detail his face, wondering if he looked—what? Sinful? 

Did it count as a morning-after if he only spent his evening in an unshakably vivid dream? Either way, he needn’t go anywhere near the potions master, imagining the man’s regular ugly vitriol overlaid with surrender. Openness? Pink sunlight. Submission. 

He remembered musk and the piney sweetness of turpentine. Remus cringed, horrified by the fantasy and his defiant attraction to it. With the strap-sharpened self-knowledge he gained with his curse, even since childhood, he knew when he felt drawn, called to, whether he packed it away or not. Holding someone to task to delirious reception stroked the knobby spine of his whipped, starved ego and gave him vengeance, turnabout; satisfaction, his missed ship on the horizon, sliding back into port. It gave him agita.

_Gods, Snape? I need help._ He wiped the dust from a pitted shield to see himself better. 

The sleeve-polished steel made no mysteries in his haggard reflection. He looked just as unwell as yesterday, sunken cheeks, tired bags, blue cast from his _Lumos_ pushing back the cosseting dark; dishwater, spell-dried hair and olive eyes, blotchy red cheeks from his vicious cleaning; mussed robes, with a smudge on his lapel. Remus rubbed one cheek, smushing his features, resigned to scruffiness as he hadn’t shaved, not trusting his twitchy hands with a straight razor.

He barely trusted himself to dress. At least once while dressing, he drifted off and flinched back to having palmed his stirring cock, rubbing slow circles over the placket of his slacks. If he forgot Snape’s face maybe—but the spite was half the trip.

_“I’ll leave you here, just like this!” Merlin, the thrill in saying that._

_A roll of hips. The other man straining in the sweaty sheath of Remus’s fingers. That deep voice, rough and ready, “Yes, just like that!”_

_Can Snape read minds? I thought I heard._ Remus struggled to recall a rant from Mad-Eye back in the day. Something about the tricksy spy, about Death Eaters beating Veritaserum. He could almost grasp the shape of words aimed at the Prophet, overheard in passing after Snape’s trial. 

It was no use. The memory puffed apart like smoke. He loitered through discordant impressions of 1982. Frustrated, at first Remus missed the slap. He froze, feeling a draft that bit like January, when a rhythmic splat carried down the hall. 

_Splat...splat…splat..._

Remus held still and listened to it waver, then jerked when the rug pulled underfoot. He tripped, falling half-into the alcove for the suit of armor, jostling it, losing the splat in the clamor. He swung back, feet planted on the carpet, while whatever approached did so quicker, almost at a run. 

Never the type to run from spooks—his defense against the Dark Arts was nine-tenths curiosity—he stayed, his deceptively sure weight pinning the tugging rug to the floor. Whatever approached dragged it taut as it thudded closer. He heard the old fabric give, tear, and thought, shifting to his back foot and raising his wand, that the creature must be lighter than him, maybe even smaller. It couldn’t upend him, in any case. If they collided—.

Suddenly, the thing gained speed.

_Thud thud thud thud thud,_ hammering down the passage toward the light. Then an abrupt cut to silence. 

He felt a waft from a fast stop ruffle his robes and, just out of sight, heard one, wet and ragged cough. The bluish circle of wandlight only showed masonry, cobwebs, and the torn rug. A looming nearness belied that, a sense of being watched from the dark assuring him he wasn’t alone. 

If he held his breath, he heard the faint susurrations of the other thing circling. 

Had it not had weight, he figured grimly, he would’ve imagined it a ghost, given the chill permeating the hall. It could be a new poltergeist. Similarly, an entirely different thing could’ve snuck up into the castle through its labyrinthine tunnels.

Remus took a deep breath and huffed a stale, fishy stink—like lake water and soaked carpeting. Then came the dripping. He felt a pat like fat raindrops and squinted down at his sleeve to see milky water soak into the tweed. While he watched, just in his periphery a greasy, black tendril touched his shoulder. A long, sallow hand followed. 

Snapping a spell that missed but illuminated the whites of glassy pitch black eyes, the werewolf straightened, turning his wandlight to split the shadows and burn out the monster. 

_Inferius!,_ he recoiled upon seeing it. An undead horror shambled into Hogwarts! Who raised it? Not Sirius—although he could, maybe, if he wanted to. But who—who had he murdered to—? 

Standing there, sodden and trembling, was a bedraggled Severus Snape. Completely unmade, Snape swayed, his soaked night shirt mapping the contours of his drowned body. Everything from the waist down dripped, stuck with leaves, wet grass, and dirt. Remus recognized the night shirt from his dream, if only from its leached non-color and the way it clung to the sharp angle of his hips. 

He’d snuck within a hair’s breadth of Remus, poised on the balls of his algae-stained feet. He reeled Remus in by a fistful of off-white collar. The werewolf went, wide-eyed, blood run cold. They were nose to running nose, and the lake water stink was choking now, as obvious as the raw redness ringing Snape’s watery glare. 

He couldn’t even imagine what had happened as he watched the other man peel back his chalky, grey lips. 

He stared down the black throat, hardly hearing the words as he stood convinced: Snape had died. Suddenly. Violently. If anyone was responsible, it was Sirius bloody Black. That madman had made a stop on the way to killing Harry, lured Snape from bed, who of course wouldn’t resist dueling an old enemy, and caught him unawares and—Remus felt sick. 

“Why are you following me?,” the corpse rasped. 

_I could’ve done something,_ slammed guillotine regret. He went limp, stunned thoughts sheared clear of body. _They could’ve been looking for a dog. I should’ve told…_

But then the corpse shook him, grabbed him with both freezing hands and heaved him close. It repeated in a spiraling bellow, “Were you waiting here? Did it send you? Did it?! _Did it send you after me?!_ ” 

_No...no, that’s not right…Inferi, they—they can’t talk._

“Snape?,” Remus tried quietly, bringing the light to the other man’s face. The black pupils shrunk—living eyes, in a living man. 

The Slytherin hissed, shoved Remus away, and took off full tilt down the hall. The wet slap of his bare feet on the stone echoed in the passage until it was the last thing left, the man having vanished, swallowed back into the dark. Remus stayed there, disheveled, staring after him; still gripped by a lingering chill, and no longer feeling safe on his own. 

He ended up at breakfast that morning, attending two triangles of cold toast, ripped on a clot of butter. It helped to crowd in among other people, letting the babble of eating students pull him from his paranoid haze. He nodded along to Albus’s joke, “Oh, once there’s a mystery needs gossiping about—I suspect we’ll have perfect attendance all week!”

“Almost perfect,” Minerva snipped into her tea. She turned pointedly from the only empty seat to all their lefts, eyebrows arched in pique. 

At a childish cackle, she bent around, back pin straight, severe bun bobbing as she chastised a first year who’d gone greener than his scarf. A few other Slytherins broke into titters, giggling over her attempts to tell them off. A crop of them snatched up their bags and scurried away. 

“You! What’re your names?,” she snapped after them. “I’ll be speaking with your Head of House! We do _not_ feed our housemates _tadpoles._ I _hardly_ see what’s so hilarious, Mister Flint!” 

A garbled, “Yeah, whatever,” spat out of a mouth of spitty scramble. 

“That’ll be five points for disrespect. You will swallow your food before speaking.” The Scottish brogue added a silent, “or else.” 

This vacancy at the High Table inspired rowdiness across the Great Hall. The Slytherins in particular seemed to think that, without the bored eye of their Head hanging over them, they had license to set themselves on everyone, including each other. Pigtails were pulled and glasses knocked into porridge. 

The Weasley twins and their band of jolly fellows were already conspiring on the largest, sloppiest fried tomato, handpicked from their hoard of stolen platters. No doubt they planned to launch it across the room. Lee Jordan had already transfigured a slingshot from his serviette. Mischief brewed, what with Percy Weasley occupied in lecturing the Patils, who sat together instead of at their respective tables.

“They’ll be even worse with him gone.” Remus leaned over to see around Hagrid’s bulky frame, frowning down at the buoyant blonde head of Professor Burbage. The young woman complained, “It’s not like they’re very in-hand on the best day.” 

He felt bad for her. One couldn’t be sure how much Severus Snape reigned in his students around the half-blood witch. Remus didn’t believe he did a great deal, but clearly the potions master made some difference. 

When she happened to look back, perhaps to eye the Gryffindors, she dithered at Remus’s sad plate. 

“You’re still not feeling well, Professor Lupin?”

“Oh, uh, no, not quite yet,” he grimaced, only for her to chatter over him. 

“And now Severus is sick, when that hardly _ever_ happens. Whatever’s frazzled the owls must be spreading,” the Muggle Studies professor worried, picking at her French toast. “Should someone be thinking about a quarantine, maybe, or…? Do you think?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t go so far as teh say tha’,” consoled Hagrid, clearing his throat with a gulp from his massive goblet. 

Its cup could easily fit around Remus’s head. He focused on that image, holding it firmly to exclude anything else. No creepy passages. No Snape shambling through the castle, while they all huddled unawares. 

“So you believe they’re separate? The owls and him being sick.” Burbage had reduced to wringing her napkin, folding it into shapes. Remus raised an eyebrow as she absently made a giraffe.

“Not that I mean to harp, but it’s all so _strange._ These last few months have just felt miserable.”

“That could be the Dementors,” Remus offered. Burbage blinked, fluttering her short lashes, and then hummed like she hadn’t thought of that. He hesitated a moment and then dared, just a little, “I’ll admit, Snape has seemed...off. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, he’s never quite ‘on,’ is he?,” she harrumphed, making him snort. “But still, yes, I wouldn’t exactly call him squeamish. I expected he’d pick right up after yesterday’s trouble, but then he took off all his classes! It must be the,” she flapped her hand at the ceiling and the bird ports, “business.” 

“About tha’,” grumbled Hagrid. “Not tha’ I know much yet, but—.”

“Still nothing? Has Professor Snape not made it out to help, Hagrid?,” chimed in a surprised Flitwick from Burbage’s other side. Remus couldn’t see the short man, but imagined him delicately shielding his mouth from his nosy Ravenclaws as he whispered, “So sorry to eavesdrop, but isn’t it him who dissects—?”

“Goodness!,” gasped Professor Burbage, a hand flying to her chest. The werewolf found her honest shock a bit young, but charming. 

He realized he had yet to hold a proper conversation with many professors. Besides the ones who taught when he was a student, which he granted were the majority, he mostly kept to himself. That now seemed neglectful. He opened his mouth to joke about the first thing to come to mind—the funny pickled things Snape kept in his office spoke to the man’s resilience. It was a bit like being a teen again, sharing about the man’s creepy interests, now graduated into disturbing skills. 

_The castle’s resident anatomist,_ he grinned. The afterimage of the ghoul in the hallway began to fade from his mind. The ice in his lungs melted into a coughing chuckle. So he ran into the other man pelting sodden through the passageways. For all he knew, Snape did that every night. 

_The man’s an oddball. Just like when we were kids,_ he settled, laying the belief thickly over the indigestible stink stuck to his clothes. 

The Headmaster cleared his throat. 

“I’ve granted Professor Snape another day to look after himself, same as I would any of us here,” Dumbledore explained with grandfatherly patience. 

They each received a blue-eyed crinkle following Minerva’s short nod, both staff members saying, “Mind yours,” in equal if dichotomous measures. Remus found his old Head’s censure quite rich, given that she’d started deriding Snape’s absence, but kept his irritation off his face. She changed the topic with a smart, “Now!,” that brought him back into the fold. Still, it wasn’t an unfelt effort. 

Perhaps venting in his dream had opened him more to his waking life. He couldn’t be sure. Simply, waking that morning had left his eyes more seeing, his tongue more restless, and he worked valiantly to keep himself in line. In a way, luckily, he dwelled nowhere near a line to step over one. 

Remus eased against the hard chairback, thrumming, unable to shake his unease, watching a Ravenclaw stare at the snickering Slytherins while Minerva talked. The girl’s round face tucked under her wispy brown bangs, indecipherable. She was a prefect, from the badge pinned to her chest, but worked almost wistfully, corralling little ones with her attention rapt abroad. 

“Don’t you _dare!_ ” 

Remus jumped to his feet, agog. A Quaffle-sized tomato streaked past on the end of a befreckled shout. It looked spliced together from what must’ve been every platter in reach, and hurtled over the shrieking school children, wobbling under its own incredible weight.

“Incoming!,” beamed a weedy Hufflepuff. Minerva vanished the citric comet as it plummeted toward Slytherin, to a mighty groan of disappointment. 

“Weasleys, Jordan: detention!” 

Slytherins scattered, squealing, as residual tomato juice rained down onto them. Uninhibited, they hauled off and flung surprisingly childish hexes back. He supposed times had changed when instead of curses he heard tripping jinxes and bats shooting from nostrils. Without knowing what the one Ravenclaw saw in the unruliness, Remus agreed. He stepped down, wand aloft, grabbing breathless teenagers by their hoods, and couldn’t help but regret when the chaos ended. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be so comfortably overwhelmed. 

Lunch and dinner passed with the same scandal and curiosity. Apparently, Snape made it to his classes, although he still failed to appear at meals. This meant his snakes wriggled just as gleefully, switching to ribbing the Hufflepuffs and spelling pitchers to spill all over their friends, daring only so far as to skim the Head Table with impish grins, while Albus stayed them by tapping his long, crooked nose.

_While the cat’s away, as it were,_ mused Remus, although Minerva threw out detentions like hot cakes. It simply couldn’t contain the throng. A wildness came over the school that day. It fit well alongside the vibrant leaves and spiced airs of autumn. 

_Remus returned to the wolfsbane fields that night. He already posed on the ledge overlooking the rolling, aconite sea. Relaxed in the warmth and still nude, he looked toward a sound—a tink and then crystalline shattering—thinking hardly anything of it, thinking it pretty at most, musical. He saw the hunched, soaked back slashing green and parchment yellow and grey through the cool, red brick and the peachy dawn surrounding it._

_“Snape,” he said, shaking his head. “Right.”_

_This was the way of the dream. The wolf would see the little cottage in the distance, approach, and find a boxy, abandoned mill crammed with rubbish, decorated with curling, creeping vine. Its ruined smoke stacks punched up, clogged with greenery and sheets of weathered tarp rippling in the breeze. Nearly prison-like, it squatted, housing the junk through which the ornery wizard wandered._

_The mill rebuffed all of Remus’s attempts to crawl inside, lacking a proper door, a cracked wall or window, a latch, a ladder, or a rock for smashing. He wasn’t desperate to go in now, though. He sensed no one new around to witness him naked. There was only Snape, and in the context of the dreams—his companion? Co-prisoner?—couldn’t rake him over coals for a spot of liberty. It even seemed to his taste._

_Last time, he’d spoken through the glass, somewhat resigned and even bolstered by his assignment to permanent outsider. It felt safe to rant outdoors, with a whole wide world to escape into. A little uncertain, but, if he wanted, freeing. And once he forwent safety and civility to speak his mind, he was invited inside, safe and free, with powerful effect._

_So he sat cross-legged, soaking in the day, listening to the muffled crashes, waiting for Snape to notice him and hoping he picked another fight._

_It was only slowly that he realized the man knew he was there, but ignored him, quivering, refusing to show his face. Remus wrinkled his brow, befuddled and a bit annoyed. Snape looked afraid, but not of him, surely? He only lounged in the sun, itching for another say._

_Snape was the one hurling loose bricks through his windows._

_While each dull crash fell louder than the last, the wolf unfolded and walked away, leaving Snape to his business. He made it but a few paces around the flowers when, by some instinct, he looked back and met Snape’s eye at a distance, through the parting curtain of his limp hair. He paused, suddenly heartsick._

_The other man smashed all the glass except what stood between him and Remus. It showed clear, then, as clear as the glitter on the factory floor, that something more had trapped the wizard than just the crumbling bricks and vines. Snape grappled with an invisible hurt. He wavered there, wet and quaking, almost newborn for all his flushing fury. A coppery whiff spread from where he cut his bare feet on his wreckage._

_The wolf hesitated, then lifted a hand to beckon him out._

_“What’re you doing?,” he asked, giving in. He could afford to care in private. “Do you need help?”_

_The wide-eyed scorn that answered tore him from a cold sleep. He woke hurting, like a tenderly rooted shoot ripped from the crying earth._

The trick of it impressed Remus. As if the Headmaster could let on that he and the Slytherins were all in on some harmless prank. Albus asked Remus to assist Hagrid while Snape was “otherwise disposed,” as if nobody noticed the potions master twitching and muttering through the dungeons, startling a few lost first years who spoke of him in more hushed tones than they did the Azkaban guards. Meanwhile, the headmaster plastered on normalcy in the following week, acting as if it sprung naturally from the growing disquiet. 

And Remus helped as he was bade, only giving over to sour concern when the weekend came: when the hollow feathery bodies hadn’t any answers, at least none that a spell could tell; when the children’s spirits began to wane and one could catch Slytherins glancing confusedly up at the empty seat, polished daily and still unused. 

Soon it became obvious that the Snake missed its Head. The kids sulked into the next week, glaring, some shoving their way from the hall early, a few sneering at the other teachers. It seemed to Remus that Snape didn’t do much when he’d been present, but that presence counted for something. Now the Slytherins were the only ones without an adult bearing over them. They looked like they were left behind. 

It reminded him of the years with Slughorn and his favorites. What had it been like for everyone outside his little club? Remus knew, of course, since he doubted Slughorn ever knew his name. Hadn’t he once called him Remy? “Remy Lumpkin,” that was it. What had he called Snape again? No, no, he knew Snape—by seventh year, at least, through Malfoy. 

“Alright, I give! What’s the joke?” 

He glanced down at Professor Burbage—Charity—who chewed through her chicken salad on rye. She ate as if an entire rack of roast lamb didn’t steam gorgeously a few inches away. She changed places with Hagrid, so she sat at matching heights to Remus. She was rather tall, he found when filling his plate. Thanking her to pass the mint jelly, he readied his watering mouth and set into his lamb. 

“Well,” he mumbled around a bite, “hmph, excuse me. I didn’t realize my thoughts were all over my face. Were you here when Slughorn taught Potions? Horace Slughorn? Husky, decadent. He used to head Slytherin?”

“Hmm, I’m afraid no I wasn’t,” she answered, shrugging, around half her rye. Mayonnaise greased the corner of her mouth, which Remus chuffed at and pointed out for her to wipe. He offered his serviette, as hers had morphed into a swan sometime between her two sandwiches. 

“Ugh, ta, I’m a mess. Why Slughorn? Was he funny?” 

“In a way, sort of. He never—,” but then a thought occurred to him. “Wait, that means you learned under Snape—uh, _Professor_ Snape.”

“Yes,” she said cheerily, sipping from her goblet of wine. She sucked the red wine of her lips and puckered at its winning dryness. With watering eyes, she sipped again, determined not to be bested. 

She seemed to have already forgotten his question as she fell into her dinner and wine. But then she continued, “So did Lockhart, the Defense teacher right before you. A good-looking buffoon, that one. I don’t know how he had the position over Severus, when he actually knows the subject. What did that show-off even master in?”

“Buffoonery, one must think.” 

“I suppose I shouldn’t speak ill, given his accident.” Instead of an apology he didn’t care to hear, she tucked back into her food.

He mulled over this new information while looking past Charity, at the Slytherins. None of the half-blood staff went over particularly well with that group, to nobody’s real surprise. Which brought to mind another thought, then another: how had Snape wrangled his House at all? Well, he always turned a blind eye to their misfitting—encouraged them, if it put Gryffindor in the ditch. All expected with giving him any responsibility. Beyond that, however, how did a tried spy earn their respect, or from their sullen faces, their admiration? 

_Nobody believes he’s loyal to Dumbledore,_ he reminded himself. _Some of their parents see him as an ally._

But then again, he glanced down at Charity battling her drink. He thought on her obvious kind regard for Snape. Some might even call it friendship. Unless she was overfamiliar, they were on a first name basis. He tumbled into his memories of Lily Potter, wondering who else could claim as much. Remus couldn’t believe he had forgotten the night Snape spent outside the Tower, purportedly to beg forgiveness, if Mary MacDonald was anyone to say. 

_And the Death Eaters took Mary, too. Gods..._

Remus put down his knife and fork, pinching the bridge of his nose. He asked himself for the point: why dredge up old, worn tragedies? What question did they answer? Snape might have friends. His students missed him. He had a firm place in the school. So, was Severus Snape a good person? No, obviously not. 

_But is there more? Is Snape worth knowing?,_ his traitorous mind supplied. 

Remus decided swiftly: it wasn’t his job to figure that out. Snape was an enigma for the braver ones, like Charity Burbage, or the clever ones, like Lucius Malfoy, or Albus Dumbledore—for them. He could only focus on himself and his lamb chop, its greasy bone picked over clean. The man’s absence wasn’t his business. Neither were his relations and illnesses. None of it. 

_I always did prefer to live hands-off,_ remarked his own self-criticism. _Heavens forfend I invest in someone._

_I can if I was asked. We all did with Sirius, even after that stupid prank, and look where that got us,_ he argued with himself. _Just not Snape. The real Snape is too...wrong._

He scooped a string bean onto his mouth and ate, whittling his mind down to the crunch. Carefully, he reached into his robe until he felt wool. Yes, there it was: the scarf he’d relegated to his trunk a week ago. It had won its way back after Remus woke that morning in a fright. Clumsily bumping aside the scuffed shoes under which he’d buried it, he sunk his fingers in it and bemoaned it having lost most of its scent. 

Now, he lifted the edge of his scarf to his mouth and sniffed, hoping for anything, trying to spur his flagging appetite.

“Ooh, that’s lovely! Would you look at that color! Did you knit it yourself?” 

“Uh, I,” Remus stammered. In a hurry to explain, he bit his cheek. He sputtered, cursing, tonguing away blood. 

“Oop, no rush!,” Charity urged, reaching across him for the jug of cold water. He gasped and swallowed some of her perfume—daisy and orange zest—and leaned well away. “Here, here you are! I only meant it looked well made. I’ve never seen you wear it to meals—.”

“It’s a, a gift,” he managed, before quaffing a cup of numbing ice water. She nodded encouragingly. 

“Well, it’s beautiful. The gifter picked well.”

“Th-Thank you.” 

He moved them onto something else, the rumor of man-eating plants in greenhouse four. While he chatted about the nipped fingers, cheek throbbing, his gaze listed back over to the dejected Slytherins. As the poorly-filled table leaked students till only a few seventh years remained, and professors flaked away, even Charity, until only Remus and Dumbledore stayed, nodding politely at each other down its length—Remus kept the one chair in his periphery, remembering his dreams. 

Every night, he returned to that golden hour mill. Six times he waited for Snape to show again, peeping through broken glass, careful of shredding his feet. Six times he woke up, dissatisfied, wondering, without wanting to, where the man could have gone. 

He toyed with the fringe of his red scarf, rolling a bit of fuzz against his chin. For the first time, he left the Great Hall last, blustering, juggling his things, unsure of where the time had gone.

_A shirt waited for him on the ledge. It sloughed into his hands, like there was more to it than mousy brown cotton. Remus hefted it, suspicious of its weight, and shook it from its sloppy fold. He looked it over, lifting a patch of it on his fist to examine it closely._

_It had been darned. One scraggly hole left by a chest pocket ripping had been patched with—he picked at the metal thread—copper wiring? No wonder the shirt felt so heavy, despite the fabric wearing thin with age, to nearly being transparent in some spots. Somebody had weaved wires through to patch the hole._

_Remus stepped back and considered the last window left intact, shirt hanging from his loose grip unadorned. Colorful bits of rubber casing littered the windowsill just inside the mill. A sliver of sharp metal wrapped in a scrap dingy cloth made a makeshift knife, likely used to strip the wires._

_He heard a scuffle. Bending close and squinting, the wolf snagged a glimpse of lanky arms sorting through a pile of plastics. Tupperware and melted toys shifted like sand over questing, tea-colored hands._

Tap tap tap! _He rapped on the glass._

_Those arms froze and withdrew, and Remus crowded close, heart skipping a beat, wondering if finally—yes. Snape slid into view, taking up a spotlight of sun for himself, arms crossed peevishly. They didn’t quite meet eyes, but the wolf didn’t mind, glancing quickly to the man’s feet. Those were wrapped as fastidiously as the shiv, and in the same dingy cotton. Rust speckled one foot, which could’ve been dust from the broken-down machines, or just as easily, dried blood._

_Remus gestured at it. His conscious measured out a diplomatic greeting while his mouth said:_

_“So, are you done?”_

_Snape went rigid, and the wolf cursed, waving dismissively. He hadn’t meant to talk down like at a child pitching a fit—but then, of course, he enjoyed his own irreverence. This dream was his only refuge where he could step carelessly, or rather, purposefully with the soul-deep want to push._

_He dropped his hand and drew Snape’s glare to him, pushed out his chest, letting his arms hang by his sides. With a nudist resolve, he shook the darned shirt at the potions master, who grew red but stayed put._

_“Thank you for gracing me with your presence. You’re quite slippery when you want to be,” Remus said with a twinge in his cheek. It might’ve been a grin. “I think I missed you.”_

_“Don’t get cheeky,” croaked Snape in return. He sounded as if he’d been screaming, or crying. His eyes were as red as Remus remembered from the passageway, sobering his good mood._

_The inkling of a grin on his face swanned into a low, neutral slack—not frowning, not anything. Remus simply stared, drinking in Snape’s stiff discomfort, gradually settling into this fantasy of seeing him again. He had dreamed up the man to tower at odd angles: straight shoulders, canted hips; jutting elbows, proud chin; and a tilted head, like he was listening, defying the stubborn withholding in the rest of him. Remus’s mind had drawn Snape in dead languages—anxious body and sumptuous expressions all dead to him in the waking world, if they’d ever been properly alive._

_He didn’t know this man, really, but here he felt like he could try to without consequence. There existed a luxury of curiosity lent in the timeless treacle, borrowed from whatever power that brought him here and ferried him selfishly away._

“What’re you staring at, Lupin?” 

You’re here,” he replied, not even thinking to lie. “I’m glad, is all. The way people avoid talking about you, it feels like you died.”

“Wh—! Oh, and you’d regret that, wouldn’t you? No one else desperate enough to sleep with you.”

_Careful, you horny bastard. You’re telling on yourself,_ he smirked but didn’t say, sparing them both Snape’s flustered posturing. 

“Don’t think I went out of my way to have you hold your bloody clothes instead of wearing them. Cover yourself!”

“Hm. I’m in no rush, but if you insist.” He’d been stuck thinking “sleep with” an oddly apt way to describe their—this—and absently scratched his nose, taking in the clothes. 

It wasn’t a full night shirt like Snape’s, like to hang down to his knees. Once pulled on and left to dangle, he was lucky to get it mid-thigh, and that was with some strategic tugging. If he didn’t know better, he would think the other man wanted him less than swaddled. With his sleep clothes being the most undressed he’d ever seen Snape, save for school, by those puritanical standards, Remus judged himself quite scantily clad. 

He didn’t mind it, although it made him aware of his thighs in a way he hadn’t had fully nude. 

“You even manage to make that rag look lewd,” Snape sneered, gaze roving down to his precarious hem, then flitting up to Remus fiddling with the patch of wire. “Stop that. Don’t pick at it!”

“How long did this take?,” he muttered, stretching around to catch the sun on the copper, admiring the shine. It looked like painstaking handiwork. He had never seen the other man’s pedantry applied to simple crafts, and admitted to liking it. Rare, but Snape had given him something, freely, that seemed a special effort. 

Raising his voice, he went on, “And where were you all this time? I waited here an entire week, but you never—.”

“You waited for me?” 

A spark zipped up his spine at the clearly stifled gasp. Remus spun on his heel, hungry. Snape’s faltering shock warmed the wolf’s blood, dazzling him, and he needed to see his face. 

Snape beat him to the finish, throwing a scowl atop whatever bubbled underneath, his most telling gesture, a looseness, pouring liquid down the length of him. His pose hadn’t changed—narrow chest still locked forbiddingly behind his crossed arms. Except now the Slytherin thawed, melting onto his curving spine, curling toward Remus, who approached the window with hand outstretched, like a poison plant unfurling for the sun. 

“Yes, I...yes, I waited. Where’ve you been?”

“...Dreamless. I took it every night. I didn’t want to come here anymore.” 

“Can you just brew that for yourself? I mean, of course you can, but is it, well, above board?” 

Snape broke the spell of hush with a snort, and a slide of hands to hips. “You _were_ a prefect, weren’t you, for all the shit you lot pulled. What’ll you do if it’s not, Lupin? Run and tattle?”

“Says the spy!”

“That’s so fully besides the point, it’s practically under it. Next question.”

Remus nearly laughed, and stopped, stunned. This was pleasant. They were bantering. With earnest, the detail in this dream blossomed stranger than all the others. When had the two of them ever been cordial, much less friendly. He wondered if this was the man Charity saw, grown from the bit of boy Lily knew. 

He supposed it had to be. People as a rule contained multitudes, even Snape, perhaps especially Snape, given their history. There were so many questions nudging his tongue, butting against the back of his teeth, wanting out without the foundation or form to deliver all of Remus’s new hungers with any guarantee of satiation. 

The wolf laid both palms on the window pane, asking softly, “Can I come in?”

“It—,” Snape swallowed, nervous. The waving tips of his hair bobbed when he looked away. “You could’ve just walked in, idiot. Pick one,” and he presented his dozens of shattered windows. 

Remus didn’t mention he’d done that in all the dreams he spent by himself. He’d wandered the mill, tiptoeing around shards for hours, either waiting for company, or the company of dawn. 

“That seems rude. Who’d ever do that?”

“Moron, what do you care? You’re only thought up to ravish me,” again, the fluster, the pinched-red blush running down his neck like the skin felt the path of Remus’s studious gaze. “On second thought, bugger off. I don’t feel like it today.”

“Despite your dearly held beliefs,” the Gryffindor rebutted, poking the pane, “I’m not any more of an animal than you—most days. I don’t appreciate you treating me like I’m feral. I’ve self-control, Snape, and if we’re being honest—.”

“Oh, let’s be,” Snape waved him on impatiently, glaring at a hill of rubbish. He still avoided Remus’s eye. Remus reigned in his tone, feeling rather urgently that he didn’t really want a fight. 

But what did he want? He couldn’t name it, insistent though it was. 

“My point is that I’m not here for sex.”

Snape raised a brow, then scoffed, and finally, emboldened by incredulity, affixed his stare to the wolf’s. With one false start, he closed the distance between them. Relief, at the lessening of space. 

“Are you even trying to lie, Lupin, or do you think that’s actually true?”

Remus straightened up as he neared, perhaps unduly excited given his platonic claims. A fraction of him, the whirring bits that circled Snape’s breathless pleading, stayed arrested by the heat their last dream lodged in his belly. The perpetually warm breeze carried a bit of Snape’s smell through the empty window frames, and it cut him, teased a fire banked by their decent conversation. 

The wolf shifted, inconvenienced by the hem of his clothes. Snape pointed triumphantly from where he’d nestled right up against the glass, “Ah, see there. Strange that I don’t believe you.”

“That’s so besides the point, to borrow a phrase.”

“Feel free to it, filthy liar. Pervert.” Snape grinned. It could’ve fell short of mocking, been light, in friendly jest, if he hadn’t then rapped the glass by Remus’s crotch. The hard thunk knocked on what hands couldn’t. 

“What’s _that_ thing want if not a fist around it, you odious lecher? You can’t lie to me when I have eyes. ‘Not here for sex,’ my arse. Tell the truth for once, deviant, and maybe I’ll buy into the trash you’ve come peddling.” 

Remus sighed, spine winding, gripping just out of Snape’s peeling sight. While Snape talked, he noticed a groove in the metal frame that hadn’t existed before. It fit snug on his fingertips, spanned the exact width of his hand, and even mimicked the dip between his knuckles. It formed a perfect notch to jimmy the window open. 

He waited for Snape to pause for breath before smiling down at him from the ledge. Then, leaning in, the wolf slid aside the glass, and savored the outraged shout. 

“No! How!?” 

And surprisingly, wonderfully, Snape stood his ground, refusing to be scared off. So, when Remus clambered over the sill, heel skating past the shiv, and eased himself down to the floor, they pressed in a line from toe to chest, trampling a sprinkle of casings. 

He felt dewy in the clash of body heats. He wished their shirts either reached the floor or disappeared entirely. This in-between of solid warmth and breezy knees was maddening. He wanted total protection, or damnation, skin to skin.

“Gods, _why_ can’t I escape you, Lupin?” 

“Poor luck, I guess. Watch out,” and he guided them back into the mill, stretched, curled his toes in the grass sprouting through the concrete. 

The shards on the ground had been swept into a pile by a handmade broom, a pole with rags and grass tied to it. And they touched—-well, Snape touched Remus, slapping his palms down on his shoulders like he meant to push him away. Just as quickly, the cool hands slid over his chest, feeling him, fisting in his shirt and pulling him close.

It dislodged a memory: him staring down a thing like Snape from a week ago. This wasn’t that man, fleeing unhinged into the dark. This wasn’t a vacant chair over sulking kids, or a question it’d betray Remus to ask. 

“You said no sex,” the wolf warned, nodding at the other man massaging his body—brushes of fingers tripping over his collarbone, a parting of the hair peeking over his collar. 

Snape hummed and wafted away. “Then what are we here for—to chat each other up?”

“I’m only saying,” he shrugged. “Do what you will.”

“Aren’t you obedient. I don’t care for it. Too much like the real you.”

“The ‘real’ me,” he laughed, only a tinge bitterly. “As if you’d know.” 

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I? Hooray, hoorah, just bloody show me.”

Remus rolled his eyes shut at the pungent kick of pine resin, chemical; herbaceous musk; and the sweetness, that he pulled in in lungfuls. He spoke tranquilly, “This, I want this. What‘s this smell? I know it’s my scarf, and I’ll probably wake up with the damned thing in my mouth at this point, but help me figure it out, please. Just...tell me what it is.”

“Potions, obviously.” That voice was more dangerous with his eyes closed. “To keep the fairies off.”

“Hmm. What?” 

“It doesn’t matter, Lupin.” 

Warm breath skated along his cheek. Remus backpedaled and dragged in a bracing breath to clear his head. It proved difficult; the scent was all over him. It overpowered the memory of the lake stink, which by now was vague unpleasantness. This wiped the bad smell clean out of mind, out of memory, as the wolf rocked, electric and lulled. He thought, if Snape had smelled like this in the real world, he couldn’t help but dog his every step. 

He imagined the moon filling and him tracking Snape through the castle by scent alone. In his head, it was a game. The man disappeared only to trail the werewolf to some secluded corner to—talk. Of course, only talk, maybe civilly. Not touch, not ever. 

_I have to remember this is just a dream._

“Go on, you’ve won my attention, and now you’ve gone skittish. Was that all you needed?” 

Remus opened his eyes, confused. Snape had crossed his arms all over again, but stared back easily, acquisitively. Every second they matched eyes seemed to give him something. 

“Tell me—what—I can do for you,” Snape assigned, solemn as the grave. 

The wire on Remus’s pocket kissed the bare skin underneath. He looked around, aghast, wondering what he could have him do. Eventually, he gestured at Snape to sit on a chair with one leg a broken yardstick. 

His company did so, slowly, dark head tilting up to keep his gaze, like if the potions master could do this wrong, he didn’t want to. And although he seemed self-possessed and repressive, he parted his knees and waited, straight backed, attentive; and Remus shook. He looked nice like that, all sat up and listening. 

“Good,” Remus whispered with hardly any noise at all. 

If there was even one more person present, they would’ve absorbed the sound by stint of breathing. The word would’ve dissolved, and the pair would’ve been silent. They weren’t, though, as they were two alone with the wisp of praise between them. 

Snape lit up in a fantastic flush that turned him pink as the sky, and just as open; melting in a profound relief like Remus had never known. His button-black eyes lost focus and he came over in shivers, and Remus, unsure of what power had taken him, did as he had done before: he held his face, riveted by the blood rushing just under his calloused thumb. 

A searing thread cleaved apart the thick air to tie his tongue to this movement in the other man’s spirit. Heady was the clap of Remus’s heartbeat against Snape’s rabbity pulse, met on the pad of his pinky pressed into his neck, which had broken out in sweat.

“Wonderful,” the wolf said, subsumed in quiet panting, his and not his. “Look at you. You’re so here, every _bit_ of you.” His other hand joined the first. “Talk to me. Just _talk with me._ There’s so much I want to know, and once I’m awake, I won’t have the chance.”

He got a grunt and a slow blink, and yes, Remus heard it, before the words beckoned, drunkenly: “A-ask. Ask me anything.” 

He did. He asked anything that came to mind. 

_“What’s going on with you? Since the owls…”_

_“I’m haunted.”_

Snape returned to the High Table. A murmur rippled through the hall when the first edge of black robe snapped onto the dais. Very few people noticed him enter, telling by the yelps and squeaks preceding the rumble of a thousand children breaking into loud whispering. 

Enough quiet floated over the rabble to hear Dumbledore greet, “Good morning, Severus,” and Snape answer with stony silence. The potions master yanked out his chair with a horrible squeal of the metal feet on stone. Then he slunk into it, arranging all his layers around him, and sat a full two feet from the table, not even acknowledging his place setting, barely glancing at his House. He simply attended, shrouded in an almost palpable disdain. 

A few professors tried addressing him, but were ignored and gave up trying, continuing to chat quietly until the desultory mood oozed over all of them. Snape looked sidelong at them every time someone chuckled. Conversations soon dried up, leaving them to throat clearing and the tick of forks on plates. 

The headmaster seemed impervious to this effect, maintaining an air of optimism that clearly only he felt. His eyes crinkled at every eyebrow raised his way. And as breakfast dragged on, his smile mellowed, reassured, noting the chaffing sullenness with a tone of, “all in good time.”

“He doesn’t look any better, does he?,” conspired Charity, unwittingly hosting the last proper chat of the morning. She stared down the table and startled. Remus bet she’d earned a nick from Snape’s glare, which sharpened, he realized, when Remus failed to look away. 

The two men frowned at each other across the room.

_“It’s a part of me, or it knows every part of me—or it takes me apart. Without dreaming, I...there’s nothing left. That was why I returned.”_

_“Does Dumbledore know?”_

_“Of course, but he doesn’t believe me. You won’t either, once I’m awake. Awake, I’m alone with it. Except now it won’t even speak to me.”_

_“I thought it just followed you. It speaks? What does it usually say?”_

_“Too much. But I’d rather that than nothing at all. It watches me every night from the foot of my bed, and trust, the talking was better. Now all it does is wait.”_

Remus broke first. He had to look at his tepid tea, nudging the cold lemon wedge on the saucer. He’d rendered it undrinkable while craning back to see Snape better. The other man scooted his chair so Hagrid eclipsed him, making the werewolf reconsider his drink that he found he mixed with milk and lemon. He stirred the brown curds, gave it up, looked to Snape, quit again, and stared at his hands—fists, balled—on the table. 

_“Is this real, do you think? I mean, we’re wizards, aren’t we? This thing is magic, isn’t it? Could this time, with us, it could really be happening, right?”_

_“Shut your mouth before you ruin me! Don’t wish that on me, Lupin.”_

_“But if—.”_

_“Don’t...please. If it hears you say that, it’ll—I won’t—I can’t. Have, have mercy. Anything else, I’ll do anything—but keep it in here. Please don’t let it be real.”_

The next week passed with Snape back at meals, and Snape back in the halls. He made it out to Hagrid’s hut apparently, and explained his findings dead-eyed at a staff meeting with a dead school owl trussed and floated in place. Pointing with his wand, he presented its blackened insides in the book of its splayed ribs. 

“Frostbite?,” Minerva asked, the least disturbed of the teachers present. 

“Yes. The owls likely mobbed the cursed ones after sensing them by whichever means they use as familiars,” droned the potions master. The owl bobbed over to her. “Obviously Dark magic is the culprit, but from where and for what purpose it was raised doesn’t pertain to the school.”

“So you know the source?” The room fell into muttering.

“We have our suspicions, and none suggest Hogwarts is in any danger,” cut in the headmaster. Minerva nodded, satisfied, and the unsure grumble died down. She shooed the dead owl away and it made another round.

The other staff recoiled except Remus, who had seen innards before; Albus of course, and Flitwick, who leaned in, fascinated; and unexpectedly, Sprout, who cited always finding shriveled critters in her greenhouses end of every summer. The werewolf decided it took a different type to head Houses at Hogwarts. The normal ones hid behind their handouts, gulping when the bird’s bones creaked around its freeze-blistered organs. Remus and company hardly flinched. 

”Well, is the trouble over? I’ve still yet to see any post, and nothing flies over the Forbidden Forest anymore. Not just owls, either! I’ve not seen a crow or a pigeon anywhere near there,” said Hooch, hawk yellow eyes narrowed, propping both elbows on the table. “It’s too eerie, even for Hogwarts. I haven’t slept right in weeks.”

“If you notice something worrisome, especially while you’re with students, please act as best suits but,” Dumbledore counseled, hands raised for calm, “as of right now, we’re protected by the castle’s wards, the Ministry’s guards—.”

“Those nightmares!”

“—and the full attention of you all here. You are as safe as can be. If that changes even a hair, don’t hesitate in coming to me.”

“We’re coming to you now!” She sucked her teeth and threw a hand out at the staff. “Last year, it was Slytherin’s monster. A troll smashed through year before that! Now it’s Dementors and Sirius fucking Black—!”

“Rolanda,” hushed Sprout, “language!”

“Stuff my _language_. If we’re in danger, we deserve to know! I’m not running—I’d never run from a fight. But as a professional working for this school as long as I have, if there’s something coming from me or my colleagues or my students, I should be told! Theories and all!

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Minerva. I’m asking for you same as for me. I’m asking for all of us!”

“Of course,” was all the Headmaster replied. He tucked his hands into trailing sleeves, and Remus knew when Hooch took a deep breath that they were in for a stand-off. Luckily, the old wizard allowed: 

“Madame Hooch, you’re free to return with Professor Snape and I to my office to discuss further. Anyone else who would like to contribute is encouraged to join us, seeing perhaps I’ve erred in excluding as many experts as are willing to help. 

“That being said, I believe the general staff meeting has adjourned. Thank you, Severus.”

Remus watched Snape pack himself up. Nothing changed in his grim demeanor, and as he had the entire presentation, he mimicked presence, made the motions. He vanished the owl once prompted, he jerked when someone shouted and thinned his lips, turning away. They spent minutes stuck together in the room while Hooch and Minerva bickered, and Snape went wooden, blank, returned to life with hunching shoulders, and drifted off again. 

He retreated to a far corner, a leather portfolio under his arm stuffed with scrolls, many laced with furious scribbles. They didn’t look like English words, but Snape lurked too deeply in the shadows to tell for sure. 

However, Remus did see him mutter and scowl at the wall, shrink away from a shiny pitcher of lemon water, a glass display case, the varnished tables. And Remus counted the times he grimaced to himself and smoothed out again should anyone say his name. Tallied the taps of his one, spidery finger as he let slip more of his mounting anxiety. 

_He’s obviously in a bad way. Why hasn’t Albus done anything?,_ Remus worried, chewing his cheek, and otherwise, holding very still, mind racing. 

_I’ve never forgotten the dreams the way I’ve done any regular one. They feel more like memories, and if they are—if that happened, if—if what he said is happening—I should say something._

_I should say something,_ he panicked, quietly trapped in his body, in his chair, unnoticed. The werewolf flung his wide-eyes to the ceiling, to the door, to Snape’s finger on his leg, scratching; from a face turned to Albus, to a face turned to the tea service, to sideways, up, down, Snape, sideways, up, up...up. 

And he didn’t move, screaming silently, when a sick green twinkle started in the dark corner above Snape’s head. 

He regretted looking at him. He regretted dreaming of him. He regretted their bad relationship. He regretted relating to him at all. He regretted knowing him, and not knowing him, and wanting him in quick flashes, and wanting nothing from him. 

He wished he could stand and leave, but felt terrified his body would crumble under the stress of realizing something terrible and daring to walk away. He hadn’t even enough quickness to smother the single tear burning in his eye. 

Remus hadn’t panicked like this since he was sixteen in the Infirmary. He relived going cold while Lily Evans blurred into red and black, splicing with the muffled, arguing professors as his late friend explained, with soft sick words, that Moony had nearly killed someone, that Black had really gone through with it, but thanks to James, all was well. Dumbledore would handle it. Nobody was hurt.

Except that wasn’t true. Remus never felt whole again. 

Every time he looked at his friends, or remembered Snape’s black glare in Dumbledore’s office, or packed an apartment in the dead of another night, he phased out of being. He became a vessel for the beast, and then nothing every moon, madness and moonlight, mist. Where was the person in that? Where was the man, or even the boy? Where was the thing of words, heart, and action, the intrepid hero, the unbreakable spirit who worked in the world instead of under it, the Gryffindor, the Marauder?

He died the night Snape almost did. He lived tissue-soft over a storm, wet, tearing, nearly gone. 

As he was then, now he grew into his chair, seeing green light materialize from the shadows. A shuddering swath of starlit space dropped from plain dark to dress Snape’s head, like a veil, and Remus wondered very seriously if he might be hallucinating. 

_I should say—to Snape maybe—no. I should say something to Dumbledore—no, he won’t—I should say—I should—if I don’t, but I can’t—_

“Professor Lupin, you’re the expert! What do you say?”

Remus jumped. “I—! What!?”

“The Dark magic, obviously,” barked Hooch, he guessed, as the momentum from flying to his feet carried him past the cluster of bickering professors, through the path of Albus’s curious eye, well into the corner Snape had folded into, and before the potions master, collapsing into gusty sigh. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said, much too loud, given Sprout’s light, “Oh!,” and Flitwick‘s, “Well, I’ll be! I didn’t think they talked.”

Snape didn’t speak. He only hunched over, sunken black glare and greasy tresses, snarling noiselessly. 

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t do this, but I need to talk to you,” Remus whispered in a rush. “I shouldn’t, I really shouldn’t.” 

“Get _away_ from me, you _beast,”_ Snape seethed through gritted teeth. 

_It was just a dream,_ his head reasoned. Remus snatched back the hand that braved the quiet to touch Snape’s cuff. _None of it really happened. He isn’t being haunted. We aren’t...any different._

Except Snape seemed so awfully small, in a way Remus had never witnessed before. Only years ago when bullying, allowance, terror and opposition was their claim to familiarity, he might’ve seen this, but he preferred never to look.

Now it was different: professorship, acquaintance; lust, if he lived by dreams, and beyond that persisted the long knowing come from sharing a boyhood, if not a happy memory during or since. These things bolstered him.

They weren’t children. Maybe Snape knew that. Maybe somewhere, for some time, they were men alone together.

“I’ve said never to call me that,” he tried, fist clenched, white-knuckled, appealing to this man with teary wide eyes.

He needed to be right. He waited pinned on the edge of a ceaseless horror more potent than the one hung glittering over their heads: exile, the banishment from the fire of once-held human warmth. There was nothing colder.

Snape flinched. 

“I’m s—,” was all he said, and it must have come from some unnoticed well of trembling softness borne by forbearance.

This haunting, which Remus realized in a rush of prickling flesh _must_ be as real as everything _else_ , left this other man secretly in need, aching, acting without meaning to. An apology, for an insult, which Snape would never give in his right mind if there was anything left to lose—it told him everything. 

_“Ask me anything.”_

A terrible chill descended over them like an exhale, and with a gut-churning delicacy, like the gentle stroke of a disdainful mother, a voice dripped into them, so quietly Remus was sure no one else could hear it. 

“Careful, dears,” it whispered, “lest you be bound in your suffering. I am a collector of the most potent regrets, and I must say, I can-not resist the two of you together...”

“Why didn’t you listen,” keened Snape, seemingly to himself.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Remus reached out again with pure confidence, like the sureness of a footfall on a stone step. Even if he misstepped and tumbled, in the moment he reached pulled by gravity, he trusted the arrival of a touch, solid and human: 

“Let’s leave. We—we need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today’s chapter is sponsored by Lana Del Rey and Four Roses whiskey💋
> 
> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	5. Discovering A Resilience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To bear the brunt of unrelenting truths

  
  
Ragged breaths, trolled from the belly and dragged through the lungs. Padfoot hacked, sat on his haunches, and aimed his snout at the leprous yellow leaves, letting the jellied phlegm drain from his throat.

It dripped onto the brittle brown in the forest floor, over twigs, into the divuts his paws dug in the rich soil. His sides were sore from the constant tug of his matted fur, only relieved by the sapping cold in the mossy tree trunk he leaned against. Bracing his back paws, the black dog hawked again with a rippling shake, coughing up dinner—a stolen pot pie, now mushy, fish pale, and rank. 

Minced off-white swam in the spit.

 _Damn it, garlic._ Padfoot grunted, fighting another heave. _No, no, I can’t. Have to change back…_

He didn’t want to be human in the middle of these godforsaken woods. He couldn’t be a few days’ walk from Hogwarts, but ended up eaten by these trees. They had the smothering, hungry whisper to them as expected from the Forbidden Forest. They swayed overhead like memory.

It was alright, being a dog in the tall, close huddle. It was the most himself he’d felt in ages. 

Being human fit poorly. He could pour what he’d left to him in a big dog with room to spare. But he needed to save his stomach. So he squatted in his rags, all of him sloshing about in his sick middle, man-sized and too small for his body.

“Stupid woods,” he groused, eye twitching. “Hells, is like they go on for-bloody-fucking-ever.”

He wiped his runny nose on his sleeve and grimaced at the mess he’d made between his feet. Sirius leaned over, kicking up dirt to bury his puke. 

He disliked this...presence in his own struggling. He usually stayed Padfoot to keep the edge off. As he trekked cross-country, the madness that took him at night dwindled more now with each waking. Mornings had him miserable and lucid enough to sneak from suburbs to the countryside. He found food in his breaks into cottages, and warming drink, newspapers, dates and times of day. This was how he kept track—this many months out of Azkaban, and this many miles from the school. 

The fugitive looked around, seeing only low branches, mud, towering walls of roots from fallen trees. Hollows in so many tree trunks took after masks in wailing agony. Outside of those, however, there was only woods, devoid of rustling in the bushes or bird song, with silver webs bejeweled in dew, forming thanks to the cool evening. 

He knew the shape of a good move to know progress, closing in, gains made on his destination; as well as straying, enraging distance. He knew his true north: like a star, a blade flashing as it plunged into Pettigrew’s chest. The lush woods absorbed so much of his anxious fog, gave him a clarity that—.

“Who’s there?!” He heard a voice from the muddle and barked. “Who’s out here?! I hear you!”

It was faint, its strength in utterance buffered by ripe autumn. The fine details were rubbed off by ricocheting through the forest, but Sirius caught the irregular bobbing of conversation held a ways off. Without busy wildlife to confuse things, he could hear it was human speech, even English, wrapped around, “...as falling asleep.”

 _No, that’s…no, impossible._ The convict thought he heard himself. 

The voice spoke kindly, patiently, so it couldn’t be him, putting aside that _he_ was the man listening and struggling for a wet breath. He strained to catch more, but the conversation shifted. Different voices spoke. 

“...it seems...mistaken.”

“You weren’t.” Stoutly said, a resolute shot from the knitting branches. Sirius flinched. He _had_ to know that voice. 

_It, gods, is it James?_

“James!,” he shouted into the woods, fighting to his feet, twigs snapping against his back. There came a hiss, a rumbling of gathered energy like a storm sat just off in a clearing—and the stench of ozone. “JAMES!”

A rustling thud, like a body hitting the leaves. 

_N-no, it’s in my head,_ he tried to reason, holding on to nettle bush with both hands, rigid, planted with toes scrabbling along damp roots. _Don’t! Stay. It’s a trap! James knows it’s a trap! Hold steady, Pads._

He pawed the ground with his bare feet hard and cracked with callouses from a tireless pursuit; like a horse left to his stable, typhoon raging, barn doors clapping, wind howling; hooves in the hay. The Dementors could sniff him out when he panicked, following his misery, a perfume, hearing his spinning thoughts, tasting depression and fear. 

_Steady, Pads. Steady. James knows. Think of Peter._

He had Padfoot. He had his memories. He had murder in his heart, which the ghouls hadn’t a taste for. His reawakened twenty-year-old bloodlust drove too hard and fast for Dementors, what savored the languishing and giving up of spirits. He crushed nettle leaves to pulp in his white-knuckled fists, stayed by his mission.

Grief and despair culminated in the Kiss, and Sirius had fury, vengeance, excitement, and purpose; and in some ways, when he was sane, he had James in Harry’s image. 

_Harry...that was that last voice. Like that boy’s, sitting on the curb, but no…too old._

“Ah. Company.”

“What—,” Sirius stumbled and gagged, eyes watering. Suddenly he choked on a rotting stench like carrion, honed on the seasonal crispness.

He spun around trying to hunt down the thing speaking. There, down a path of arching saplings, bent and stripped bare by old winters: between the oak switches swept a towering figure, wrapped in black.

It approached with such nauseating, quiet steps, each sinking into the mulch, churning the earth. More carrion smell, like every dead thing in the forest lay under this creature’s feet and rose to hit the open air. And then, once it came closer, and stooped to swing its head under a drooping bough, Sirius saw the skull and flew backwards, ripping leaves from the bush to break away. 

_A Death Eater! This close to Hogwarts?!_

“Not I,” the thing seemed to sneer. He couldn’t see its face, and so couldn’t be sure of its expression. 

He felt disinclined to call it rightly human with how high it hung over him. Its shoulders brushed the lower canopies, and as he backed further away, furious to be without a wand, it seemed to grow taller. 

Sirius shivered in a sudden, groping cold. 

“You’ve no idea what you heard here, do you, Sirius Black?” 

“How do you know my—mn.” His name and face had been all over the papers for weeks. Although he highly doubted this being read the Prophet, all lanky and huge, with tangled hair trailing about it and jagged teeth flashing just beneath its skull face. 

Whatever it was, it exuded pure evil. Knowing that, Sirius had Pettigrew to kill. He couldn’t be waylaid. 

“Forget it. I’m just passing through here, whatever-you-are. I’ll be gone in a few days.”

“Yes, I know. Ten, to be exact.”

“That’s...that’s not right.” He wasn’t that far from the school. The Forbidden Forest was massive, and one was easily lost to it, but a ten-day hike couldn’t be ahead of him. How would he survive?

Sirius wavered, unsteady, then raised his fists, lacking any other options. It chuckled. 

“You are correct in that we’ve no business between us. Only, we may run into each other again, as both your work and mine happens here for the next week, at least. For your sake, ignore what you hear.”

It leaned down to whisper with a groan in its robes like wood bending. The fugitive glared, nostrils flared, jaw clenched, unmoving. 

_This isn’t real,_ he decided. _My brain can pull whatever piddling tricks it wants. I know what’s real. That bastard stowed up in the castle is real. My ripping his throat out is real. This is nothing!_

“Yes. Yes, let’s both agree with you,” the creature nodded, satisfied to having come to some decision. “Without a doubt, whatever you encounter out here isn’t the tiniest bit real. It could be. It is somewhen else. But for now, let’s call it trickery. 

“I know I’d prefer if some of this never happened. Perhaps someone believing they won’t will spare my hurting heart.” 

A twig snapped under his heel, and he was alone. The stink evaporated, leaving behind the smell of cold mud, dew, and greenery. Sirius slid to his knees, relieved, then tensed at the next whisper from the woods. It passed through, garbled and proud—maybe a woman’s voice?—and then was gone. 

He rested for a while as the evening matured into night. He digested the garlic, gave himself another hour to pass the last of the pie, and soon as he could, changed back into Padfoot. The matted black dog traversed the forest again. Had anyone been there to bear witness, they would’ve seen the rangy grim take on the covered hills.

The madness that took him at night would dwindle more with each waking. But the creature blurred the line between wakefulness and dreams. Eventually, Padfoot would root through the undergrowth and find other animals. He would feel the day change and know he was in real time. 

However, nothing but his fragile mind could explain the ten-day night he would spend, brushing by the monster on the centaur hoof paths, crossing the occasional clearing and phasing through ghostly versions of himself. Of James, Lily, an older Remus, a grown-up Harry even. Of his cousins, Malfoys and Lestranges, and You-Know-Who, in countless iterations. 

_He saw Harry die._

_He saw Harry die again._

_Sometimes he saw himself, the Potters, Dumbledore; Alice and Frank’s son, a frizzy-haired witch, or some freckled Weasley succumb. Nothing but hallucinations, and for every one, the creature watched on in questioning silence, pausing the moment and walking through it, like in a Pensieve._

_One time, it met his eyes and turned away, hand on its chest. Padfoot snuffled and hunted down the opposite path. Both of them left the ghostly Snivellus to fade, his silver eyes staring sightlessly up into the sky._

Let him rot _, the grim cursed._

After escaping, he met a lending orange cat, and only realized then that he went all that time without food. Ravenous, he ate whatever the cat brought him, chewing on birds, craving rat flesh. 

“Say something, _damn_ you!” 

Severus woke up feverish from the potions, the congested sleep, and the strange, battered nightmares. Shards of shattered terrors played on the backs of his eyelids— _his sizzling veins, venom, his torn throat, fangs._ His throat closed as his eyes opened. He curled on his side, wheezing, wondering if this was it, if he would finally—but his breathing returned, timid and abused. 

Rolling over, used vials tinkling as they rolled with him down the duvet, the bedding purple-pocked from drips of Dreamless, he sloughed off the mattress onto the floor. Hiding from panic in his unwashed clothes, Severus breathed. 

Sterger watched him, as it tended to: this time from the living room turned library. The wizard massaged his neck where the phantom bite knotted his muscles. The demon stood by, absently stroking open books graffitied with its name. It infuriated him.

“What, so now it’s cheap nightmares?!,” he railed at it, scrubbing at his sore, rheumy eyes. 

He peppered his cheeks with grit and loose lashes, and squinted, barely able to see through the film gunking his eyes. They were gummy from too much hard sleep, and he glared at the black smear in his grey quarters.

“Was leaving me to Lupin not enough for you?! Altogether too peaceful, is that it? You had to have him suggest I might—!”

He screamed, frustrated. In his last lucid dream, Lupin asked him if their meetings were real. He asked this after all his other questions. He asked it after threading his fingers in Severus’s hair, while rolling a lock of it in his thumb and forefinger, watching the split ends with bright fascination. He asked it while forgetting his other hand cupped comfortably around the small of Severus’s neck. 

The dream was just about over, and the wolf had spoken so delicately, the other man hung on his every word. Severus thought he’d be asked for a warming favor, a touch, a tongue. His hands shook, already anticipating the trail up under Lupin’s hem. He felt so alive, poised on the tip of a perfect moment.

Sterger didn’t respond. Severus had gone a week without a word from it, sensing the weight of unsaid things. But the demon hardly held its tongue this long before. It fell silent a few times, when it waited for him to act—handing over the letter to Dumbledore, or snubbing the man at breakfast; setting into the werewolf, or matching looks with him in the Great Hall. 

How dare it stop altogether when Severus groveled, in a fashion, by wanting while wretched? Isn’t that what fed it? His capitulation? 

The wizard couldn’t take refuge in the mill anymore with Sterger planting its ideas there, using Lupin as the trowel to dig deeper, deeper, and further still, hoping—what?—took root. Hoping Severus acted? Hoping he pursued the wolf in life for a harsh reminder of the enmity he stoked daily? Hoping for newer wants with bleaker futures?

With all that time to ponder while Severus slept, it must’ve figured, “Why have him mourn a dead woman when he can yearn for a living—.”

 _Pathetic,_ he jeered, grinding his teeth, and his knuckles into his temples. _Idiot!_

He couldn’t take the silence anymore. His neck burned like he’d been bitten, and he had no one to tell him why. Sterger didn’t move to help him stand. It boiled his blood to think he expected it to. What was _wrong_ with him? 

“Don’t just sit there playing coy with that parody of fucking decency! _You_ don’t have decency! _You_ don’t know restraint!” He stabbed a finger at the demon, what trembled, now blocking the bedroom doorway. 

“You prod, and you ruin, and you make visions, and _stand_ there or sit or possess or what have you, doing _nothing_ useful, just mocking me to my face! I’ll kill you! I swear on my _life,_ I’ll kill you! Say something! Anything!”

He needed his desires laid bare so he could see them, strangle them, and make them cold. He knew now that he preferred dead desires to living ones. Even finishing the week alone didn’t shake the flutter from that moment when the sun lit up Lupin’s river green stare, splashed morning gold on his teeth; showed all of the almost-smile cradling _“real,”_ with careful hope. 

As if he were self-aware. As if before this, they were friends. As if Severus didn’t hate him. As if they could meet over a steamy goblet in Lupin’s office and brush fingertips, kindly.

And, absolutely terrified but needing to know, Severus attended breakfast the next morning, expecting on some level for nothing to have changed. He had been so alone, restricted to classes and his apartments, that he was sure he wasn’t missed. Conversation didn’t interest him. Neither did food. He only went to remind himself of unequivocal fact: there were no soap-and-chocolate hands waiting for him above the Lethe.

Except Lupin stared. Merlin help him, but Lupin stared until Severus glared back. 

The potions master brewed Dreamless every night since, daring the fumes to rise into the Headmaster’s tower and tell the man to what he’d been driven. Another week of guzzling potions, and now he felt sick. They didn’t sit well. Something was wrong. His belly hurt, above where Lupin rubbed it. His skin yellowed and bruised under his clothes, and all he wanted was to sleep. 

Severus yelled, “Why would you do this to me?! Why would you drag that imbecile _into_ me?! Why are you here?! What’s left?! What’s left, you monster?! What’s _left?!”_

He scrambled back onto the bed to hurl his used vials at the door. They crashed quieter than the mill windows, and their glass wasn’t half as whimsical. Plain glass with smudged fingerprints and goopy sediment splattered on his walls. He didn’t hear the Floo light, as by then he’d turned, raving, ripping down his bed by its rods and posts. Severus gutted his pillows and smashed through his wardrobe doors, and tramped through the crushed feathers and splinters, sighting the overdue books like a hound.

He calmed eventually. Fortunate to have woken up sometime around four, he could rage and wreck, and then shave and dress before sunrise. He watched his face in the curse-blackened mirror, scraped the razor over his stubble. The shower ran boiling hot, filling the room with clouds of steam. It reminded him of his first night in the chamber—black glass, fog. 

The professor could step gingerly over his living room rug, slippery with shredded paper. He peeped the corner of a neat envelope and plucked it up with a murmured spell. Running a black eye over the handwritten note folded inside, saying nothing, he shook out the wedding invitation next, spat on it, and threw both into the grate. 

_“Professor Snape,”_ the note read. _“Thank you for allowing me the few extra weeks with your letter. My apologies for the delay. Regretfully, time is a tricky mistress._

_“I’ve looked it over, and I’m afraid, besides the shocking fashion of its delivery and its mysterious sender, nothing else about this invitation seems untoward. It’s simple ink and parchment. Consider: is there an old acquaintance from your other work that might try and arrange a meeting?_

_“Perhaps your study into the owls will reveal more. You will find your specimens preserved in Hagrid’s cottage, although I’ll ask that you be careful of the Forest, should you decide to investigate there. I think it best we arrange an outing with the requisite experts, as needed._

_“Otherwise, I hope you are well—Best Wishes, Al—.”_

At which point, Severus twitched and lit the flame. He watched the letters curl, scorch, and ash. Then he left his empty quarters, thoughtless, his confines echoing with his footsteps on the stairs. As he went, his shadow cast massively, so tall it folded across the ceiling, wicked claws sprouting from its head, crowning him in an obscure glory. 

NEWT Level Potions brewed outside that morning. Severus visited Hagrid’s hut while his sixth years foraged for plants, ones he rattled off from memory. His students rushed to jot them all down, and some cried out in dismay when he finished, unblinking, and left them setting up their cauldrons in the grass. 

“W—Professor Snape!” One girl hustled after him down the hill. He swung around to face her. She skidded to a stop, ashen. 

“I’d get started if I were you, Miss Wallfisch,” he drawled unfeelingly, giving into one, slow blink. “Anyone without a potion ready to hand over upon my return earns a zero for the day—.”

“But—!”

“—and fails the next exam, so _do not interrupt me_ , and get to it.”

“But, sir!” He sneered down at the Hufflepuff crest on her robes, wondering where she got the gall. 

Severus pointed past her to the Whomping Willow; the lake, waving with a speckled tentacle; and backwards, to the abyssal tree line. She paled to white.

“That’s where you’ll find your ingredients,” he said. “If you think the task too daunting, and would rather squander your future wrangling memos and fetching coffee, drop my class this instant and waste your sixth year poking at tea leaves and sneezing palo santo onto a ten-for-two-dozen crystal ball. 

“If you want a respectable career, I’d suggest turning your remaining two hours to some benefit. That’ll be ten points for wasting my time.” 

He toted his bag of tools and continued on his way. 

His beaten, black bag was charmed silent and featherlight to accommodate a handsaw, a few, small hammers and a pair of hefty, metal shears. The rest of the period was spent cracking along sternums, prying open rib cages, and shining lights down listless beaks. He’d spare the occasional glance out the windows where students fled swearing from the forest. 

Subsequently, samples were shaved off of the owls’ necroses. Guided by a glance at a drawn figure, his scalpel sliced into a ruined organ. He felt the sharp stab in his own middle, and rested his palms flat on the table, winded.

Quiet panting filled the hut beside the students’ muffled shouts. The hinges squeaked above the stiff birds rocking, hooked to the rafters, and the barking bloodhound was glimpsed cavorting through the chaos outside. He swallowed nauseously, and pushed on.

After an hour and a half, Severus worked off his dragonhide gloves. He washed his hands, snagged the groundskeeper’s attention, and waved him back inside. 

“That just ain’t righ’,” Hagrid grunted. Severus ignored him, fixing his sleeves. 

“What d’you reckon done it?”

“I assure you I wouldn’t know.” 

Once proper, he checked the half-giant’s clock. He started packing his notes, and just lifted his dicta-quill, when he saw what it had written, and winced. Then he hastened and shoved the pages in with his tools. He could just as well improvise a presentation, and would have to, either way. All his notes were useless. 

Sterger had overwritten the pen’s uniform cursive, resulting in that teeth-and-whiskers scrawl. “May 2nd, 1998,” repeated ad nauseum, looped over what he’d said: frostbite, in magical owls, just a month gone from summer. He couldn’t recall all of his conjectures, not when he’d expected they were recorded. This couldn’t happen. He was a scholar. 

_Why do I bother?,_ he relented. _I can’t even talk to myself._

“Thank you, Severus.” 

He found his corner and wallowed. A presentation of his findings didn’t strictly need a body.

Severus vaguely expected to be kicked out of the staff lounge for bringing it. He figured the Headmaster would ask he return with palatable sketches and diagrams replete with arrows and tidy captions, all to spare them the horror of an avian autopsy. He planned on pretending to do just that, and would instead walk around the lake, just to assuage his growing impulse to be near it.

However, he’d forgotten the odd license Dumbledore gave him for these things. It came almost like a consolation. Where the people of Hogwarts were concerned, Severus was allowed as much nastiness, grotesquery, and bile as he pleased, so long as it came with information—a spy’s allowance. 

So he spooked some staff, merely annoyed the others, and vanished the owl at someone’s waspish, “And I think we’ve had quite enough of _that_ , please.”

Only Flitwick looked fascinated. Lupin appeared unbothered. No matter how Severus tested him, the werewolf seemed enviably fine. 

_He's staring again,_ Severus thought, shoulders bunching. That olive drab laid along his sides, over his profile, even down to his boots. He started to fidget.

 _Hold still!_ Severus tried but couldn’t. His stomach hurt so badly now, after hours of standing, and it was a labor not to groan. 

Fatigued, sleep beckoned. He thought he could sleep in his office, and push off tending to his wrecked rooms until evening, if not longer. If he slept during meals, and stayed up all night, he could avoid Lupin without using more potions. 

Speaking of, Lupin still hadn’t left yet. The staff meeting had ended, and the werewolf simply stayed in his chair. His greying head turned toward Severus, noticed from the corner of the wizard’s eye. 

_Why won’t he leave?_

_He can see me,_ whispered the cold, _and is fighting with whether he should raise an alarm._

 _Oh, I see,_ Severus replied, weak-kneed, relieved, subtly furious. _You’ll speak up if it’s about him. Your new favorite, is he? And how exactly did you pry open that weakling’s spirit? With an egg spoon? A soggy toothpick?_

 _I can look into whoever looks into me, Severus. Although, I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humor,_ it said longingly. 

A chill oozed over him, and he glanced about, wondering who might’ve noticed. As described, Lupin sat ramrod straight at his corner of the meeting table, looking at Severus as a child would a boogeyman. 

The wizard rode out a dizzy spell after a flash of growing fever. He slouched around a vicious cramp in his abdomen. 

_So, this is why you’ve wanted to speak to me so desperately,_ Sterger surmised. _You need me to read you your own thoughts when you’re set on ignoring them. Very well: you’ve developed an intolerance to your little concoctions, poisoned prince. If you keep abusing them, the damage will become irreparable._

The pain passed to a dull ache, and Severus kept quiet. 

_You understand that you don’t take that potion to escape me, but rather, to escape your werewolf._

_He isn’t mine!,_ he objected. 

_Perhaps not yet, but I would give him to you, if you would only ask. Even without me, he isn’t unobtainable._

_More fool him,_ Severus bristled. 

_Perhaps,_ Sterger admitted, _but you forget your virtues._

_A zero sum._

His demon hummed. _You only run from the first person who would help you._

 _I don’t need Lupin’s help!_ He thought of the Headmaster’s inane note powdering his fireplace. _If Albus wouldn’t—!_

 _Albus Dumbledore does not save people,_ it cut in caustically. Severus stopped. He hadn’t realized that Sterger spoke with real affection until any and all trace of it had vanished. What was left burned, like dry ice, like acid, to take skin. _What he did for you won’t be saving. He only preserves his greater good. He won’t protect your life or his own. The boy you’ve sworn to protect must_ die _to stop his enemy—._

 _Untrue. Impossible_. He refused to believe it, not with they all orbited Trelawney’s prophecy.

 _“Like a pig to the slaughter,”_ it recited. _In your own words. He’ll regret untethering from that child the way he regrets the fate of his younger sister._

 _I never said that, and Dumbledore doesn’t have a sister,_ Severus protested, sure he’d finally found the lie. Aberforth Dumbledore ran the hole at the edge of Hogsmeade, mopping the grubby floors with his opinion of his elder brother. No sister to be found. 

_You will in four years’ time. And no, not anymore._

Now Severus stared at the back of Dumbledore’s pointed cap. He stood peaceably, hands hidden, attending to Hooch and the other staff.

The potions master was glad they couldn’t meet eyes, since he couldn’t ensure any successful Occlusion. In the same measure, he wished to delve further into the old man’s mind than ever before. What did it say that Severus had served for so long without ever knowing him, without ever assuming he could know him, without even trying? 

Now _he_ felt like the child seeing the things hid under his bed. 

_You and your charge are far from the first he’s left to brave their elements—and he does so value bravery. Yours, Lily Potter’s, the boy’s, Remus Lupin and his school friends’, and how many of them has he saved individually? You place your faith in the wrong person, time and again. You asked a war general to be a healer._

_Yes...yes, suppose I knew that when I did it,_ Severus confessed. He lost the membrane around his beating grudge against Dumbledore. It burst open, dried up, and flaked away when Lupin looked at him. 

The grudge squatted fat as a toad on his inflamed liver, and perhaps because of its foundation in certain truths, didn’t destroy him. Severus thought that any disloyalty to Dumbledore would be sussed out immediately, and force him out into the cold. But what had loyalty earned him when he caved and asked for help? Not saving, surely. The demon was right.

And while he could be a great deal poorer, he only knew that when looking at Lupin. There they had been in his dreams, the hated and the beloved, and each morning, a part of Severus confused who was which. 

Lupin, a Gryffindor charity case who Dumbledore chose over him at least once: how many years since graduating did he spend in abject poverty? Between his other questions, he’d asked Severus how the spy proved his loyalty, with an empathy suggesting he’d done the same himself. Why would he need to? Severus had needed to outpace his Death Eater status, but what was Lupin’s crime? Lycanthropy? 

Hadn’t the old crowd thought him untrustworthy? Harkening back to the murky dog days, all the wolf did was hang around camps offering to feed him. Severus remembered his outcast’s self-satisfaction from back then, at seeing someone loved lose favor. He wondered if Lupin had ever even spied, or if he simply reported on the places he’d been left to wander. 

_People are far harder to keep alive than their memory, you see,_ Sterger explained. It settled over him like it had laid its head against Severus’s. 

_I know Albus Dumbledore. He only wishes it were different for his followers without making it so, despite all his mighty powers._

He looked away from the teachers clumped together, and, avoiding the glint in a shiny cabinet, realized. Albus wrote that he found nothing strange about Sterger’s letter. Albus downplayed the haunting, calling it stress, when Sterger had said itself: it only knew the regrets of those who’d seen it. 

“Th—.” He couldn’t...he couldn’t possibly... “That bastard...that _bastard.”_

 _That night in the chamber, after you fled,_ the cold described, draping over him in a ghastly embrace. _Your Albus investigated my tiny room and saw me, same as you did. I read him all his private horrors, and all of them were bleached and buried longer than you’ve even been alive._

 _Only, because he has a mission, he feels he can’t afford to be weighed down by his many_ _mistakes. He convinced himself that I was a nightmare. Admittedly, he has ones worse than me. And if you could pull out a tragedy and gift it to someone, he’d have one for every student in the school. Cloak-shaped, potions-shaped, twinkling little tragedies._

_What did he gift you, Severus?_

“I’m not a sniveling child. I know that I’ve caused my own ‘tragedy.’ I leaked the prophecy. I killed her,” he muttered, exhausted, briefly thinking of his ruined room.

It seemed far away from the teacher’s lounge lined with busts of past professors and portraits in their caps and collars. He felt so dissonant, standing there with his portfolio and robes and boots, shaved with only a nick on his chin, when inside he was an apocalypse. 

Did Sterger think he could handle _wanting_ Lupin on top of this? Severus couldn’t even fathom what bubbled inside of him. If he thought on what his parts could make, he shuddered, too afraid to guess. He barely kept the lid on before his strange possession, and now he felt simmered and changed. 

_Dumbledore will leave you this school one day,_ it said, diagnosing him with something terminal. _He will die, after fatally wounding himself with cursed objects, curiosity, and hubris. His using you will seal your fate, cement your loyalty, and break your heart._

 _You shouldn’t…,_ he trailed off. 

_Hmm, I shouldn’t know the future?,_ it finished for him. The room went dim and sparkling around him, and he felt the floors sink into leaves. _Why ever not?_

Severus twitched a finger at the water jug, gleaming wetly on the edge of the table. His reflection ballooned on its round body, only just showing the two green stars circling above him. 

_You’re a mirror. You should only reflect what’s there to be seen._

_You have a ‘Seer’ there, stealing biscuits, and suggest the future only remains to be seen?_

Sybil Trelawney did just that, ferreting away iced confections in the hammock of her scarves. The potions master curled a lip at her, but gave the prophecy he had just revisited its due credence, and conceded the point. 

_If I were standing at the head of a path through the forest,_ Sterger went on, _I would follow it and see where it leads. Time is only the woods, and possibilities are the paths diverging through it. One can walk them however one pleases._

 _Of course, I will tell you what else I can,_ it offered. 

Severus wished he had someone to face, but settled for a sharp look at a glass cabinet. He ended up seeing the white notes stark against his dark robes and the leather portfolio. He brought the few pages where a few observations slipped through Sterger’s scribble. The majority of the parchment, however, was overlaid with a date five years ahead. 

_Alright,_ he answered. The wizard held his breath, and gestured to his papers.The arguing in the room raised to a fever pitch and returned to a peevish murmur. 

_Unfortunately,_ it said, _no matter how I counsel you, no matter what decisions you make alone, you always die in the last battle of your second wizards’ war, on May 2nd, 1998. You and one other present._

“Professor Lupin, you’re the expert! What do you say?”

“I—! What?!” 

Severus closed his eyes, gripping his pants leg. 

_Is that why you picked him to…,_ but he didn’t finish. 

Five years? They only—he only had five years? And that was his life? Decided when he was nineteen, over before he was forty? He never thought he’d die of old age, not even as a boy with his dad dead from cirrhosis, but five years? He had already wasted thirty.

He thought on what sad death Lupin must have, and wanted to leave. 

“So, that’s why it was him,” he resolved, limbs leaden.

 _I didn’t handpick Remus Lupin for you,_ Sterger professed over a sudden, rapid thudding. Was it Severus’s blood rushing in his ears? It sounded like footsteps. 

_I opened your mind to whatever could bring you love. I did not nor do I currently control anyone who answers the call._

The air changed from frosty woods to nervous sweat, soap, and dark chocolate.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t do this—.” 

Severus stared at the man he found in front of him. Tousled, grey-shot brown waves and creeping sideburns; thick brows, wispy lashes, and those droopy, olive eyes; peaky, with crow’s feet and laugh lines, on a face crisscrossed with scars; and scarred hands, and patched robes, and a firm line to his chapped lips. 

They were in a dark corner, no peachy sun to lend them any beauty, and still, Severus couldn’t feel worse.

Lupin leaned toward him to whisper. He didn’t even hear the words, only feeling the hard knock in his chest: the last kick of a heart thought dead by all who’d known it. He couldn’t help himself. 

“Get _away_ from me, you _beast,”_ he hissed, like a scabby alley cat approached by some idiot, caring soul. 

Lupin looked stricken, and withdrew. 

_Sterger,_ Severus summoned, snarling, wounded, watching the werewolf’s face fall. _Tell me how I die! Can I at least avenge Lily, or is this all in vain?_

The cold swanned around him to hang over his head. No more indulgent leaning as it perched hungrily. 

_Your Dark Lord murders you over a misunderstanding, for a wand._ Then, as if compelled to be truthful, the demon added: _You are a linchpin to your cause, however, and are remembered as a hero. The boy survives. He names one of his sons after you. Is that enough?_

 _It will have to be,_ the wizard resigned. 

“I’ve said never to call me that,” arrived sternly, patient if disappointed, open and present. 

The tone had no business pouring from a man as distressed as Lupin. It took the hurt in him and held it. It waited for him to give thanks for the instant relief of being carried, while expecting him to apologize for the sting he’d dealt. 

“I’m sor— ,” he started, and then clawed his own leg, betrayed by himself. 

Sterger slinked its ready way over Severus, and Lupin also shivered. 

“Careful, dears, lest you be bound in your suffering,” it whispered, delighted, and he wanted to punch the werewolf in his fool mouth. Did he have any idea that he’d just sentenced Severus to more torment? 

“I am a collector of the most potent regrets, and I must say, I can-not resist the two of you together…,” and it finished for Severus, privately:

_So many of your futures end with your stubbornness and his inaction. I wonder if I should travel his paths and take an even more “active” role._

_Don’t say this moron just brought you on himself?,_ he asked, incredulous, mortified, indignant beyond belief. 

“Why didn’t you listen?” Severus didn’t realize he said this aloud. 

“I know, I’m sorry,” Lupin huffed. 

He heard the demon’s glee sucker to Lupin, who looked at Severus as if he just realized this himself. However, expecting fear and second thinking, it sowed chaos in his pounding body to see, again, that Lupin seemed stupidly stouthearted. Wary, but there, like the worst thing had been the second of rejection and not the beast at all. 

_Well, he only fears one beast, doesn’t he?,_ Sterger seemed to grin. _What’s a curse to an already cursed man?_

Warm, rough fingers encircled his wrist. Severus startled. Another touch accompanied the first, this one supporting his elbow, as if helping him to walk. 

“Let’s leave,” again, in that solid, waiting tone. “We—we need to talk.”

 _The seventh floor room,_ the cold urged. 

“The Room of Requirement?,” Lupin answered. He paled, looked up, and back at Severus. “I know where we can go. You’ll have to trust me, though.”

The other professors whispered when Severus gathered his things tight to his body, and—let himself be led to the door. Lupin muttered encouraging nonsense, and for some reason, it worked. He followed easily, his inner voice quelled by shock, staying panic.

They made it to the row of cloak hooks when a page of notes flew out of its folder. Severus bent to pick it up, hurrying to beat Lupin already dropping to one knee. A ripping spasm shot through his stomach, and he coughed, swearing. 

“Are you sick?,” the werewolf gasped. Severus shook his head, gagging, but couldn’t trust himself to speak. The tide rose in his throat. He covered his watering mouth.

“Professor Snape,” prompted Dumbledore from behind them, and all the whispering stopped. “Might we count on you to join us soon as you’re able?”

“A—hurgh!” 

Both men stiffened when Severus’s voice returned, “As it were, Headmaster, I may be indisposed until later this evening.”

“Y-yes!,” Lupin hopped in, spinning his stilted smile about the room. “Ahem, yes, very unfortunately, I’m escorting Professor Snape to the Hospital Wing to see Madam Pomfrey. So sorry to have disrupted you. Afternoon, all.” 

They excused themselves, Lupin giving a buddying nod and easing the lounge door closed. A shadow passed between them and fluttered down the hall, buffeting the robes of a copse of weedy teens like a stiff wind. They shouted and rewound their scarves, but appeared otherwise unscathed.

Severus hunched wincingly, and Lupin breathed, “So, it can use your voice.”

Severus managed, “It can mimic.” 

“Well then, it must be great at impressions. Let’s consider inviting it to the staff Christmas party, really liven things up.”

The wizard looked to his company, disgusted. Lupin shrugged, clearly having given his best. 

“I’ve an entire lesson on fighting fear with levity,” he tried to explain. 

“It’s not a bloody Boggart! A dress and a stuffed vulture won’t—d-damn!” His middle knotted. More shooting pain. He fought upright, shaking off Lupin’s help. 

A curious shine came to the Defense professor’s eye then, a furrow in his brow, that suggested a question: “So what is it? What _could_ stop it?”

“As if I know!” He made to tell him Sterger wasn’t a grindylow nipping in a fish tank. Academic rigor lead nowhere, so told by the fine he’d owe the library once Pince discovered the ruined books. 

“Professor Snape, how could you!” 

They both turned to see Poppy Pomfrey storming towards them from whence the cold fled. She marched, matron’s cap askew, apron flapping angrily around her feet.

“You sent your N.E.W.T. class into the trenches!,” she shouted. “I’ve three sixth years who’ve scrapped with the Whomping Willow, one with _tentacle welts,_ and another nearly gored by a unicorn colt in the Forbidden Forest! What’s the meaning of this?!”

He struggled to full height, glowering at the clutch of students stood eavesdropping over Pomfrey’s shoulder. They scattered, and he cleared his throat, gagged, and cleared his throat again. 

“That last one,” he intoned gravely, “ _must_ be Leticia Harolds. That girl is a deviant.”

Lupin sighed a woebegone sigh. 

“Actually, we were just making our way to you.” Severus hissed at Lupin to shut his mouth, but the man continued. “Professor Snape is sick with something, and we were hoping to have you check him over.” 

“Sick in the head, more like!,” the matron rebutted. “That’s five students, Severus! Your advanced class only has six!” 

“If they’re so peerlessly close to death, why’re you here carrying on instead of wrestling them back from the brink?,” Severus snapped back, squinting through a bead of sweat stinging his eye. He started in a cold shiver. 

“I—! Well, I,” Madam Pomfrey wound down to confounded sputtering. Lupin resumed playing walker, and needed shaking off Severus’s elbow. “I was in the hall before I’d even realized. I could swear I was walking to the window, as there was this awful draft, but I’m not sure…”

Then she rallied, clipped as per her usual.

“Since I’m here, I should take a look at you.” She eyed Severus from head to toe, and then nodded to Lupin. “Follow me.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Severus growled weakly. He was hummed at and once more led away, trailing Pomfrey’s clicking heels. 

* * *

It shouldn’t have relieved Remus that Snape was too feeble to storm off. As they shuffled to the Hospital Wing, the man berated him, Pomfrey, a handful of gawking students, and his passing reflection in the suits of armor—more than once each. Once he’d cycled through insulting Remus another time or two, however, he fell quiet, breathing tightly as they progressed. Remus grew glad that they could push him with little resistance. Every turn revealed a worse faring man. 

They started needing breaks. 

The group paused once for Snape to lean against an arched sill. An overcast day threw in pale, watery light that washed all of them of color. Pomfrey looked particularly grave when she swooped in to check Snape’s vitals, right there in the corridor. Students gathered and gossiped around them as she started prodding him with her wand, and bits of him lit up in worrisome, sulfurous yellows.

“Come now, you’ll make it just fine. Hup, up with you,” she pushed, giving him her shoulder to steady himself on. He slid back against the wall, nostrils flared, dappled with sweat. 

His portfolio tipped to the floor. Remus grabbed it, peeking around at the swarm of dirty sneakers, checking for any flyaway notes. The crowd surged back, as if the leather case had fangs. Granted, it could have. 

“Holy crap, is Snape gonna bite it?”

“Maybe someone snuck garlic in his lunch.”

“Aw, lookit him! You think he’s fixin’ to spew?”

Snape sighed, like he wanted to sit up but couldn’t find the strength. Instead, he frowned down at his wand choked in his fist and mumbled curses. 

“That’s enough, all of you! Carry on your way,” Remus told the crowd. It thinned some but not by half. He tried again.

“I said make space! Twenty points from anyone still here when I count to three! One!” 

The children scrambled. Remus bent again to support Snape’s other side. He acted freely and pushed back the hair stuck wetly to the man’s cheek.

“You’re alright. You’re almost there,” he murmured.

Pained gasps became retching, and they hurried as best they could. Once the matron requisitioned Snape to a private bed off of the main room, she pushed Remus out and tried to send him on his way. He turned, rumpled, and saw the curtain waving as she hustled back bedside. 

It parted enough that, when he sidestepped, he could peer into the close, white space. Madam Pomfrey’s first move: she summoned a scrubbed tin bucket and shoved it into Snape’s lap. The ailing professor dripped over it, shrugging off a firm pat, spitting. 

She tutted, “First comes first, now, out with it. Let it go.”

Remus felt sorry at the first grunt. He wrinkled his nose, heart sinking in dreadful empathy, hearing a gush of fluid, a tearful swear, and more gushing. Anything the sick man had in him came up in waves. Each one tore at something, as he bowed around his heaving stomach, neck taut as piano wire. 

Pomfrey, bold as anything, covered her face with a handkerchief and looked into the bucket. 

“Potions, looks like,” she snipped. Then she dipped in while Snape hung his head in his sick pail. She unbuttoned his collar, at which point Remus thought to look away. 

“And a bit of jaundice, some bruising. Let me see your nails...Right, your liver’s a mess. Tch! What have you been doing to yourself?”

 _All the Dreamless,_ Remus realized. Snape retched again and ended by cursing violently. The werewolf knew the pain of vomiting when poisoned. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“All of you professors think you’re better than common sense. Well, whatever you’ve been taking, consider yourself allergic.” Heels clacked on the tiles, and Remus ducked behind another curtain, keeping hidden. 

“Luckily for you, that man thought to say something. As is, it’ll be a week before you’re set to rights. No potions but the ones I give you!”

A raspy hack, from a throat burned by stomach acid. Remus winced. 

“I brew the potions you give me,” Snape snarked, gravelly and out of sight. “If your treatment is me sicking up all over myself and taking _my own medicine_ , I can do that perfectly well in my private quarters. Unhand me.” 

“Always stubborn as a goat—P—Professor Lupin! I thought you left!”

He looked around, shocked, only to realize his shadow gave him away. It fell on the curtain on account of the unshuttered windows up above. He stepped out, guilty as found, and saw Pomfrey scandalized and Snape—well, unsurprised. It hurt his ego a bit to think the man saw him as an eavesdropper. Between the two of them, they might both be the lurking type, but Remus felt he hid it better. Snape took lurking as a point of pride.

“I figured I would walk him down to his rooms,” he tried ruefully, “if he needed the, uh, the help.”

Two pairs of dark brows shot to hairlines. He was saved from an onslaught of nothing sweet, surely, when Snape bent over into a renewed bout of vomiting. 

“I’ll wait over, um.” Remus hesitated, then took himself to the Pomfrey’s office, feeling foolish. 

_Tick, tick!_ went the clock on her wall, after a quarter hour waiting for news. He followed the swinging pendulum, drumming anxiously on the leather case in his lap. Sitting in the matron’s office, skimming the shelves, he looked for the locked drawer labeled, “L - O.” Seven years of shrinking into the same chair, fixed on the brown paper label. 

It always felt so high up until one fall, when he sat down, already looking, and couldn’t find it. His eyes kept bumping against, “A - C,” because his drawer felt too low, same as it did now as an adult. He’d shot up his last summer before graduating. Hardly since. 

Remus blinked, amazed. Someone replaced the handwritten label with a typewritten card and clean, block letters. No more peeling brown with the discolored wood underneath and Pomfrey’s looping script. Strange, how even the little things changed. 

The door swung open, and Madam Pomfrey dashed in, pursed lips leading.

“Horrible, horrible man!,” she harrumphed, swatting the air like an old wife breaking a hex. Remus started to greet her, but she stomped over to her medicine cabinets, whipping them open with an angry swish of her wand. They presented all their remedies for Pomfrey to tisk at, hands on her hips. 

“This won’t do. None of it!” Finally she spun around and noticed him. “You’re still here?”

“I have his…,” Remus lifted the case to show her. She loosed a gusty sigh and rolled her eyes, making him grin. Hardly enough clean, new labels in the world to ease her spirit. 

“Well, good luck giving it to him! I can wish you that much, but then who am I?” She reached into her cabinets, jiggling this or that bottle, jostling her vials. “I’m just the nosy parker regrowing his innards. He won’t listen to _me_ . Maybe _you_ can treat him, since you’ve already worked the one miracle, smooth-talking that ornery bastard down the hall in the first place.” 

_Oh, come now,_ he thought, embarrassed. _I spoke a bit softly, and now I’ve some kind of silver tongue?_

“I think it was more the necessity of it than any persuasion on my part.”

“You say that,” and he waited for the rest, but only received a suspicious squint. It dawned on Remus that she and Snape must have a rapport, like he must have with Charity Burbage. The way they tended to talk about him felt familiar and keenly exasperated. They carried knowing his neuroses like a badge of honor.

“Leave it to him, and proper medicine is ‘fussing and dramatics.’ It’s just Filch’s supply closet and whatever odds and ends he’s kept, boiled in a kettle—but not while I’ve got him.” Pomfrey finished, proudly puffing out her chest. Then the clock chimed six, and she hopped back into judging her potions store unworthy. 

“He won't be walking out today, if he’s not snuck off already. You’ve done your duty, Professor Lupin, so you might just as well leave his things with me. I’ll see he gets them.”

Remus knew when he was being shipped off, and squeezed the scribbled notes closer. He wondered how to explain the duty he felt nagging at him, incomplete. She, same as the professors left whispering at their backs, knew he and Snape’s history. He couldn’t think of anyone but the two of them and the Being that would understand him asking to stay. 

“Well, it—,” he began at her arch look. 

“Hullo, Madam Pomfrey? I heard—oh! My, afternoon, Remus.” 

Charity Burbage nodded at him from the office door, blonde hair pulled back from her face, holding a Boots bag of all things. She smiled quickly, nudging her way in beside him. She addressed the matron while digging through her plastic bag.

“So sorry, I’ll be quick! I heard from the students that Severus was deathly ill. Well,” she snorted, rustling plastic, “they all say he’s dead and buried, but—ah, here it is—I thought he might be doing his experiments again and testing on himself, as he does, you know?”

Pomfrey nodded patiently, arms folded. The young woman handed the Healer a pill bottle, rattling with weighty tablets. Pomfrey read the lab, her frown alleviating just a wrinkle, enough to make Remus feel fully out of his depth. 

“Those are charcoal tablets, or well, they should be.” The Muggle Studies professor peeked at the bottle when Pomfrey turned it to inspect the ingredients. “Yes, it is. It helps with poisoning and toxins and such. I usually keep them and had just been to the chemist’s a few weekends ago. Unopened! Thought I’d run it by in case he can’t take any potions yet.” 

“Well, you’ve done it,” dismissed the other woman. 

Charity smiled wide, as if Pomfrey had paid her a hard-won compliment. Maybe she had.

“How is he?,” she asked,

“He’ll live, but you’ll have to visit tomorrow. He needs quiet and rest.” 

“Of course, I’ll try to come then. If you stick him to the bed, he might even be here when I do.”

Then she turned to Remus, who by then had relaxed his grip on Snape’s notes. He had put them down on the desk and quietly gotten to his feet. 

“Oh, are you leaving now? We can walk out together.”

“Sure,” he replied, looking through her, picking at a patch on his sleeve. 

He had cycled down to his old robes, and would be in rags by the full, to keep any new fabric from chafing his crawling, aching skin. The werewolf always enjoyed the worn clothes before his moons, hurting but needing something before the shameful divestment preceding losing himself. Another thing left to the dreams had been any satisfaction with nudity. 

His father used to say, “The clothes make the man.” 

Now all he felt were his bare wrists, his open neck, and his robes an inch too high above his ankles, parts exposed to the sterile air. Professor Burbage spoke directly, eye-to-eye, or in that moment, eye-to-ear, keeping his pace in her pleated, dusky blue robes. She tied a simple, lopsided bow in her necktie, and wore her orange-and-daisy perfume. 

Endearing, academic. 

He kept a polite distance and looked away. 

“Rumor is you threatened students with a year of detention to avenge Severus’s death?”

Remus managed a weak, “Ha, no, nothing like that.”

“Right! I mean, I knew you’d gone to school together, but I figured you weren’t close,” presented as a fact, but he heard the probing upturn. Thinking on it, he met her inquisitive, clear-eyed stare, and answered truthfully. 

“To be perfectly honest, we’ve got bad blood between us, and quite a bit of it, actually. It’s not been easy working with him. I’m sure you've noticed, but even at his best moments, he’s an irredeemable prick.” 

“So,” she followed up, curious, undaunted, and something in it evoked Lily Evans. He couldn’t say what. She looked, sounded, smelled nothing like her, but the driving way she asked, as if simultaneously checking for truth and that Remus was okay, made him miss having a friend. “Not close then?”

He shot back, “No, the opposite. Closer than we can...readily admit.”

Snape missed dinner, but so did Remus. He parted ways at the library, a square of pilfered note riding along in his vest pocket. Entering the vanillin and book-bound hush, he noticed a student snoring lightly, pillowed on his school bag. Remus approached Madam Pince on her beeline to the delinquent napper, question primed.

Breathing in such floral perfume on the walk over reminded him of his last dream. He spent several minutes comparing scents, deciding begrudgingly that he much preferred Snape’s, which had the unfair advantage of a—favorable—association. This brought up his asking about its origin, and the haunted man’s odd answer. 

_“Potions, obviously. To keep the fairies off.”_

Not so odd now, given the circumstances. 

“Excuse me, Madam Pince!,” he called to the librarian. She whipped around, sparse brows digging a groove in her high forehead. Her peeve-folded skin stretched tight with her severe ponytail, spawning an impactful glare.

“And _how_ might I help you?”

“I was hoping you might have a few references on fairies in stock,” he said, begging her pardon. Pince went an apoplectic puce. 

“Well, how about you borrow from _Professor Snape_ if it’s fairies you’re looking for! I’ve been to the Headmaster three times to report my overdue books! He’s cleared them out of the library! I won’t have it!”

Remus made vague noises of sympathy while backing steadily away. 

“I know his habit of marking all of the castle’s property with his little _scrawl_ . So, you can tell that thief when next you see him,” she growled so menacingly that it woke the student from his kip and sent him scurrying out of dodge, “that if I find _one mark_ on any of those books, I’ll have his salary!”

“Yes, right, will do,” he murmured, looking for an escape route. He uttered, “Aha! Well, see, there’s my section!,” and hurried off to Creatures, according to his muscle memory from school. He might have picked a random direction, but would rather that than fall victim to Pince in a rage. 

Remus scanned the stacks in Creatures, and confirmed for himself that Pince didn’t exaggerate. Every title on fairies, ghouls, poltergeists, and even lichs had disappeared. He found himself working against a late start and Snape’s exact same trains of thought. Vampires? Checked out. Living visions? Missing. 

He gave a wry smile to the densely packed shelves on werewolves. Anything else on mimics and shifters, he surmised from the surrounding tomes, were holes gathering dust between the crisply bound grimoires. They gave him a gritted, gap-toothed grin.

 _He never was a slouch at Defense,_ Remus recalled. He visited Curses, Jinxes, and Maladies: all victims of the raid. 

_Christ, man. Leave a morsel for the rest of us._ He bit the dry skin off his lip, trying to think six steps ahead of himself.

The gains Snape made through Hogwarts’ collections were truly staggering, but then, how could Remus blame him for exhausting his every resource? The small brush he’d had with the creature plaguing him had stood the hairs on his neck. As after-dinner stragglers shuffled murmuring into the library, he moved on, uneasy about time. Night would fall soon, which by Snape’s account, meant the Being would be upon them once again. 

_Where wouldn’t Snape think to look?,_ Remus puzzled. He doubted he knew the man well enough to predict—but then, he thought he might. 

The werewolf had wondered while staring down at Professor Burbage’s head how she and the venomous Slytherin could form any kind of bond. Remus found her likable, which should mean Snape would deplore her. Contrarily, Remus hardly spoke with Aurora Sinistra, who he’d expect to be Snape’s diehard companion, if anyone. Both Slytherin, both exacting, both closed off and cold. 

The key difference must then be something about kindness, lending to why Snape and Hagrid seemed on perfectly fine terms. That and subject of expertise: Burbage, her sensible Muggle things; and Hagrid, his husbandry and way about the woods. If memory served, Snape’s two masteries were Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, sharing few things between them besides grim application.

 _Snape’s dramatic, but practical!_ The Defense professor hauled tail to the far off section for Magical Myths and Legends. 

Fairies as wizards knew them were barely more than decorations for Yuletide. As creatures, they lay beside pixies and brownies as small, semi-intelligent pests. However, the fairies as Snape might mean them—the fae—were derived from oral and written histories. No modern wizard had proof of angering or brokering deals with the fae. For all intents and purposes, they didn’t exist. To believe in them was a fool’s sport, and Snape must’ve thought himself desperate to rely on old brewers’ superstitions for help. 

“Haha! Take that, you jaded bastard!,” Remus whooped. 

He began pulling down texts on Muggle folklore. Fishing out the page he stole from Snape’s case, he noted the one date degrading into gibberish, and a name, a real thing spelled backwards. Abuzz, he ran down the books on mirrors and thought to check through scrying back in Divination. 

Settling into a lonely corner, he spread out his books, and scoured the indices. Time slipped away buried in locales, in riveted stories at that table, until he tapped on a passage. He flicked a startled look over at the date in Snape’s notes and hovered closer to his book.

 _“Souls of sinners,”_ it described, _“flying in flocks like birds, from the West.”_

“‘Sluagh,’” Remus read aloud. 

Not everything fit in these creatures’ descriptions, but it inspired him to gather his best bets and move into the Restricted Section. Mythologies piled in the crook of his elbow, he let himself past the tasseled rope, into the glass and wrought-iron gate with his own permission. He grabbed a lamp, lighting it with his wand, and resettled with a plain view at the back of the library. 

Then he resumed reading, one eye trained on the stacks. The narrow pathways between them darkened as students left for curfew, extinguishing their reading lights. Pince made her final rounds, leaving Remus Disillusioned, watching silently. Then he read on, only visible in the scope of the tiny lamp. 

He camped until his breath puffed white in the frigid dark. Somewhere midnight passed, then one, then two. His eyelids drooped, and he dozed off, won over by a long, frightful day. 

_He exhaled, relieved to see the pink light on the ivy red-brick walls. Remus powered through the flowers, seeing the stone ledge, the mill just out of reach—_

“Hn?,” he snored. No, this wasn’t right. 

He sat up, wiping nonexistent drool from his cheek only to see he hardly slept a wink. Remus pushed back his chair and stood, swaying, searching the black stacks for signs of life. He heard a tick, like a hard nail on glass, and relit his lamp. 

The black resolved into a body, giant and long and caped with stringy, black hair. Its yellow-white bone mask smacked against the shadows, same as its clawed, sallow hands splayed on the gate latch. It curled its fingers, worming them between the latch and the glass. 

Its greening flesh pressed into the door, looking leagues too soft, as if ready to slide off the knuckle. The iron burned it grey, which it hardly seemed to notice.

“You!,” he gasped, stumbling back, disoriented. “You can’t—you just, you stopped the dream? You’re—”

“Sterger,” it smiled. “I see you expected me.” 

Remus took a deep breath, glancing at the passage open to the flickering lamp light. He had, in fact, been waiting.

“Yes, I figured you’d want to talk, given the bit of interest I might’ve won from you earlier.”

“A talk…”

“Lovely evening for it?” 

The werewolf wondered for a lengthy second if he’d lost his senses. Then he retook his seat carefully, and invited it to sit. 

It shivered, throwing its head back, flashing a cage of alarmingly needle-sharp fangs, grinding them, twinkling vapor leaking from the jagged seams. A laugh, of a voracious sort. 

“At least you like my little jokes,” Remus flinched. 

The section gate swung open. It came closer, reining in its height to join him at his table. The lamplight didn’t reach its face, meaning when it slid a hand over the skull, nails scraping the hollow bone, and removed its mask, Remus couldn’t see much. Deep nothing. Staring stars and teeth. 

“It feels safe to say ‘no,’ but may I ask you to humor me?”

“Please,” it rumbled, amused, waving encouragingly. 

“Are you human?”

“No.”

Remus showed it his book. “Did you used to be?” 

Sterger grinned. “Do you know what you wish to accomplish by delivering Severus my secrets?” 

“I…” He did, and it wasn’t the hardest thing to admit. There were worse burdens of truth. “I can’t say what else I have to offer—him. We aren’t friends.”

“You aren’t quite allies. You _are_ lovers, conditionally, and what kind of connection is it, exactly, that you can enjoy?,” it added, like it was reading his mind. He relaxed, knowing it probably knew him perfectly, feeling like a successful conversation only demanded focus, without guardedness or terror or anything to hide. 

“Mhm. I wish we were more.” Sterger hummed, and Remus took a shaking breath.

 _Alright, over that hurdle._ “It isn’t my deepest regret, but it’s my newest regret, save—well, save this here, obviously, my possibly shooting myself in the foot.”

“Your candidness is breathtaking. I see nothing in you that I can lay out for you,” it gestured to the table covered in local mythologies, “and make you confront. You know all of yourself incredibly well, having spent years as your only company.” 

“Thank you, I do try,” he said, preparing for an exception. One never came, and he sent up a short prayer to whatever gods forgiving his habitual lack of faith. “You never answered my question. The gate we’re in is iron, and if you were fae, like how Snape treats you, you shouldn’t be able to enter it. So, I ask, were you ever human?”

“Frankly, Remus Lupin, refreshing soul that you are, I’ve decided to like you. So, since _we_ are friends, I will tell you two things you could never know on your own.

“The first: gifting a spy with secrets will only make you a part in his games. Severus is wounded, and wily, and as quickly as you would give him anything to stop me, he would do the same to stop you. In a few months, you will forget your potion and run rampant on the grounds—.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“In the future I saw, you will, putting three students including your friend’s son in terrible danger.” 

Remus already saw the rest. Snape—glare as black, teeth as bared as the boy from Dumbledore’s office—murmuring to a Slytherin, one of any from Remus’s classes. He imagined Draco Malfoy writing to his father on the Board of Governors, starting the mob convening on the castle. He would have to resign. Once exposed, he would never teach again. 

_I wish...,_ he thought, but he wished many things. That Snape wouldn’t. That Sirius hadn’t. That he could make amends. Then he remembered that futures, more than any past, only needed a few changed details to transform.

How would a student write his father without an owl? None would fly to Hogwarts to deliver mail. A Floo call could answer that simple question, but that he could ask it at all bolstered him. It could’ve just been an illusion of control over a terrible lot. However, the future Sterger told felt more like a possibility than a certainty, if only because how it might happen conflicted with the strange times they inhabited. 

“But why? Why would I forget to take my potion? I would never—.”

“You rush to meet Sirius Black, afraid he is going to kill Harry Potter. Severus sees you in league with him, after—.”

“After what? I would _never_ help that—!”

“Because you discover,” Sterger leaned in, reaching over, pressing a dingy claw into his chest, over his heart, “that your biggest regret, Sirius Black, is innocent.”

“...Wh-what did you say?”

It held up two fingers. “The second thing.”

This was his hell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	6. Vexation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a one peaceful moment to be had.

White cubicle curtains waved gently around the vacant hospital beds. Fluffed pillows in neat cases piled on top of folded blankets, newly washed. Clean light like patience lined the aisles from the windows, supporting the precious calm. Even while patients didn’t sleep here, the infirmary itself slept and met him disinfected and perfumed with pre-winter cold. 

He shambled along, Disillusioned. The room rolled over him like the panorama in an old movie—bleached linen, lavender grey shadows, cool and pleated sheets; painted metal bed frames and the turn toward the private beds. He wanted to take one of the cots for himself, lie down in it, and sleep. 

_Sirius is innocent._ Sterger vanished soon after that, and Remus hadn’t slept a wink. He felt rubbed raw by a night spent asking the orphaned air, “How!?”

Returning to his rooms to tear up his memories, he wandered, red-eyed, visiting the alcoves of the castle as if the answers cowered there. He ended up at the top of the Astronomy Tower, watching the long night burst into a sweet and small flower morning. It bloomed forget-me-not blue, and he stood in it, lost, still in yesterday’s clothes. 

_What did the Aurors miss? How could he be—and for twelve years we left him to rot? But could he be—? Why did nobody check!?_

Remus pulled back a curtain and stared down at the man tucked under the covers. His black hair webbed over the white pillow case stained and grungy from its greasy, grubby sleeper.

Snape lay curled on his side, his grey socked feet poking out of the blanket and hanging defiantly off of the bed. Black, upturned cuffs, speckled with piled linen, gave up a slip of parchment ankle, rubbed bald by high socks, showing the dry skin all green and bruised maroon.

 _Pomfrey couldn’t get him in pyjamas,_ he realized dully, drifting into the visitor’s chair. 

Snape stirred and sank again. He slept a few more minutes, almost like in a drugged haze. Remus watched emptily, except for a ghostly envy at the soft light striping the bridge of Snape’s aquiline nose, turning his lashes white.

 _He looks like_ he _slept well at least._

The werewolf bent over, elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands. Holding his pounding headache, he grunted around a sob. He didn’t know why he came here, other than to get off his feet.

“...Lupin…”

Remus looked up, shocked. Snape stayed facing away on his side, but freed a hand from the covers and waved him around the bed lazily.

“You’re late,” he slurred.

Remus sniffed wetly and rose from his seat. Dropping his camouflage, he crept around to face the other wizard. Up close, he could see his sickness: some gauntness in his cheeks, and cloying, minty mouthwash on his breath. Snape spoke with his eyes closed, waving until Remus leaned low enough to touch. 

He offered his upturned palm, and the werewolf stared at it in confusion before a wrinkled nose and a grunt told him to give over his own hand. Remus’s fingernails were bitten to the quick, nail beds dotted with scabs. Both hands were still peeling from his gnawing at them all night

And so he appreciated Snape’s reliable coolness, sliding his fingers into his palm, wondering vaguely if cool hands predisposed him to brewing, like his knack for creative obsession.

“I’ve, ahem,” Remus cleared his hoarse throat. “I’ve a question.”

“Mm?,” Snape hummed. 

“How—ah.” The potions master swiped a thumb over his ashy knuckles, distracting him. Remus stopped him with his other hand, and Snape’s veiny lids parted to unleash the glossy, black stare. Still, the man didn’t sit up, or raise his voice, or even scowl. He just tugged Remus closer, sliding his head a nudge closer on his pillow to speak quietly.

“Snape—.”

“Shh, listen,” he was shushed conspiratorially. Then Snape’s lids feathered shut again. He went on. “Everything’s changed, and I don’t trust it. Is this dream different for you? I see all white, which is _routinely_ inauspicious—.”

“You’re in the Hospital Wing.” He was too tired for this. “You should be resting, honestly.”

“Why would I be dreaming of the Hospital Wing, Lupin? Hah, c’mere.” He was urged closer and closer still. They practically both lay on the pillow now. Remus felt the stifled, minty breaths ruffle the bedsheet. 

“My question, and then you need to sleep,” the werewolf promised.

“I am—what? What question?”

“Well, if you’d let me ask it. D…,” he trailed off. He looked up, blinking away dust, shoring himself up with more of his phantasmic tiredness. That numbed the ache. “Does it—does Sterger ever lie?” 

“Uhm...no.” He could hear the slow cogs in Snape’s brain grinding against the sleep. “No, no, it doesn’t. That’s the problem. Better if it did.”

“Well. Alright. Fine.” Lancing pain. He couldn’t—Remus changed the subject. “I have to g—I, um. Snape.”

“What?”

“How—how did you know I was here?”

“I feel you, always. Like a buzzing in all of me.” A rough cough, a long fingered wave at his covered body. “Irritat...nn. Can’t stand it...” 

Remus bent lower to hear him. Just as tenderly as the morning, Snape curled up to close the gap. Pinning the now-stricken Gryffindor with a sleepy, “Hm,” and a brush of cracked lips, the brush morphed into their first real kiss, a resolute press, Snape’s lips parting, Remus gasping, breathing from him. Unlike his cool hands, his lips were warm.

Remus felt new and unfathomably old and a little sick. He grabbed Snape’s face, pulled away, and kept pulling in air, on some level desperate to suck back the wisp of his soul just fished out of him. 

Snape simply relaxed into the hold Remus had on him, relinquishing his cupped face, resting his cheekbone in the calloused cradle. His frown lines lessened, more black hair, musty and unwashed, framed his loose expression. Black glass returned, deep, unassuming, open.

He looked vagrant, and of all times to do it, he managed innocence, completely without meaning to.

He hadn’t even looked innocent at his own trial. But then, right after stealing from Remus, right when Remus drowned in watery heartsigh, Snape looked boyish compared to the monster he liked to play. The Slytherin hurt him, so quick and sly, like the scorpion on the frog’s back, and he looked perfect. A complete mess, worrying and grey, and precious.

 _He could know about Sirius. He could’ve known this whole time_ , screamed a jealous thought. It jabbed the shot, feral animal Remus had been fighting all night and hollered inside him. It simply howled. _That thing has always been_ his _problem._

_It spoke to him first. It must’ve told him._

_He could’ve let Sirius fester all this time and felt nothing. It isn’t worse than him outing me to all and fucking sundry. It’s no worse than damning me and all my friends for what we did to him—and fifteen years ago! He wants to act trusting? He hates us! He just hates! It’s all he does!_

“Why.”

His voice broke the calm. Snape grimaced and pulled away. Yes, he must have been dosed with a sleep aid or some other taxing potion. When he finally focused on Remus, Snape’s unease started foggily, growing clearer like the misty grounds.

“Why would you do that,” Remus snapped.

The potions master squinted, then finally seemed to realize that they were awake. Snape recoiled, dragging a sheet up to cover his chest peeking through his unbuttoned shirt.

“What’re you doing here?,” he snapped back. “Why are you crying?”

Remus hadn’t shed a tear. He confirmed it when he wiped his face with his sleeve, mortified: no tears, only eyes overheated and dry. He didn’t know what Snape saw and in place of asking, walked out, quickening when called after, afraid of what other feelings clung to him plain as the wretched day. 

* * *

They worked together in a peripheral fashion. Severus brewed his potion seven days a month. They had—kissed—and would surely, occasionally share space. However, as long as he had a mind, such as it was, Severus would set it, revenant heart and all. 

“We will have to speak eventually,” was a weak thought, his weakest, reclined in a diaphanous guise of logic boasting all the stupid wishes underneath. He rebuked it.

Severus minded his place setting, weathering the subdued breakfast noises and Lupin’s absence—the hall made calm. He enjoyed an ache-free body, good sleep, even the will to eat. Severus chewed pensively on fried egg, tasting salt and runny yolk, and actually hungry, refused more, mostly because he could. 

_It’s over now,_ he thought. The bubble had burst. No more summery dreams. No more urgent, curious touches. _Back to some sense._

The Hospital Wing felt like another dream. He lay in a clean bed, dozing and well, when the blood-hum started, the sweet cocoa pushed through lemony disinfectant, and he knew he wasn’t alone. Comfortably, he reached up like he hadn’t in Steger’s roomful of stars. He thought it was safe to.

He still felt the stubbled cheek scratching his palm. He nurtured something newborn and Lupin ran off. Severus was left to dress and scurry to his rooms like some soiled second daughter, high from a morning of losses and hoping at least to save his reputation. 

_That’s over. There’s only the real of it now._

Severus glared at one of his Slytherins trying his patience, playing with the juice jug. She plopped it back down. He returned to his plate. 

_I knew none of that fantasy business would hold up,_ he told himself, tearing toast into bits. _Quit sulking._

Something pinged, and he looked at his goblet, his fingers loosely circling the stem. A potion vial had appeared next to it. Frowning, he analyzed its color. A copper brown suspension in clear liquid, no sediment falling on the bottom, perfectly brewed: a nutrient potion, to be drunk on a full stomach.

Pomfrey did swear to chase him down with her treatments, which he insisted were _his_ treatments, whether or not he chose to take them. 

_“I’m not your babysitter, Severus! I am a Healer, and if I have to heal your thick skull, after I crack it open and_ pour _this potion into it, I will!”_

He glanced at Lupin’s empty seat again and found that he did it so vexing, he popped the cork on the vial and dumped it into his juice. Quaffing the whole goblet and slamming it down, he stood and, begging no pardon, made his leave. 

He would be spitefully well, in a bid to never see the Infirmary again.

Severus plucked a particularly feral Hufflepuff berating his boyfriend just outside the doors:

“You’re making a scene, Simmons. Both of you, to class,” he snipped, yanking the blond Simmons back by the hood. His Ravenclaw beau looked relieved, and Severus sneered. “I’ll not relax too much if I were you, Mister Grant. I’ll be seeing you both in the dungeons for Potions, and if I have to separate you again—.”

“Sn—Professor Snape.” He looked and went quiet. Lupin waited for him, hands in his robe pockets, feigning nonchalance as if Severus failed to have eyes or wit enough to see the tension drawing him upright. That olive stare shone a shade too gold in the indirect light. 

_Right, it’s been nearly a month. The full is coming,_ Severus realized. 

The mundane observation steadied him. Envisioning crushing this and simmering that, arranging his ingredients in order, mashing beetles, slicing roots, he pointed Simmons down the hall, with the hangdog Grant shuffling after. Then he followed, giving Lupin his back. 

“Snape, wait.”

“No.” He tried to stay calm, and thought of brewing. 

“Please, I need to speak with you.” Gods, Lupin followed him.

“You have nothing I want to hear,” Severus lied. 

There was a part in the Wolfsbane potion where the whole flowers were added and stayed intact in the liquid, fanning and swaying beautifully as the brew was brought to a boil. After which, when Severus strained them out during distillation, they would disintegrate into the pour, and reek of bitter poison. It was a routine part of the process, not a step to be dragged out or preserved to watch the flowers dance. Pretty blooms came second to efficacy.

He usually liked destroying them, satisfied by the poetry, the caving in, where no one but him would know what he’d destroyed to make something necessary. This never bothered him before.

“We’ll make a spectacle what with me chasing you around the castle,” said the coarse murmur. Severus didn’t realize he’d slowed down, allowing Lupin to catch up to him. 

“Then _don’t.”_

“People are staring.”

Severus spun to hiss at any ogling students to go about their way, but found their eyes already averted, cheeks red. Lupin stood right by his shoulder, and started loudly discussing detentions. 

“Yes, I agree. Missing the Hogsmeade trip this weekend would only be fair,” the Defense professor announced. Then he leaned in, murmuring, “Just smirk a bit and they’ll scatter.”

Severus shivered at the breath on his neck, and rankled. “Get back!”

The clog of students gasped and scurried away. He caught a snatch from a fleeing conversation: “Oh my God, I didn’t think they—! Can you believe—?!”

Shaken, he pointed to an empty classroom up ahead, over the downturned heads of a dozen students. He stormed off, furious by Lupin lagging behind, and doubly so when the other man fell in step at his side. 

“I’m sorry for this morning,” the werewolf muttered. Severus flashed hot with anger. “It visited me last night, or well, I invited it.”

“You _what?!”_

“It’s an incredibly intelligent being, unlike any shade I’ve ever seen. I had to—.”

“I don’t _care_ what you had to do!” They reached the classroom. “In!”

Severus shoved Lupin’s chest, forcing him stumbling back into the dusty room. Satisfied to have let off a bit of steam, he snapped a vicious glare over his shoulder, clearing the last onlookers from the hall. Then he hauled the heavy door shut behind them, the squeaking hinges ringing in the buttoned silence.

Both men stood, breathing in cobwebs, until Severus spat with nostrils flared: 

“You’re a fool to have met with that thing. It’s a menace!” 

“It linked us together in some way. I wanted to know how, maybe why,” Lupin defended, turning to the room, pausing at the stacked chairs and broken desks at its back. It seemed he wanted to sit. No such chance—Severus wouldn’t entertain him for longer than it took to yell. 

“You have to admit—,” he went on. 

“I’ll admit nothing! Do you think I haven’t done every bit of research there was to do?” Severus drove forward, throwing out a _Muffliato_ in case he could be heard screaming from the hall. “Do you think I just laid back and refused to stop it? It’s too powerful! And here you are, inviting it in for tea!” 

“Yes, yes, you ran through everything, _except_ folklores. See, I had a theory—.”

“Oh, well, if you had a theory!” Lupin glared.

“I wanted to test it, but I…,” the werewolf seemed lost for a second. “The way it claims to know the future…”

Strange, sad light came into Lupin’s eyes, the teal sorrow glinting off of the yellow-gold from his lycanthropy. His gazed looked greener than it had ever done—not Sterger’s sizzling arsenic, or the deep emerald from Lily and her damn son. Moss green, like tree bark, almost glowing in the dim beside the blue-white from their _Lumos._

Severus knew the force come over him. Lupin was recently devastated. He thought immediately of their fates, that they will likely be dead in five years with nothing fostered between them. Nothing memorable, at least. 

“What did it tell you?,” he asked, afraid Lupin knew, too, and wondering if that explained the anger from this morning. How dare Severus press closer, despite pasts and presents and futures? Or maybe it simply made sense not to want him when not trapped together in a dream. 

“You…,” but Lupin didn’t finish. Severus rallied.

“In any case, don’t listen to it. Don’t look for it. Don’t speak to it. Don’t act on anything it says.”

“But if I could change—!” 

“No! This—we aren’t _meant_ to know the future!” 

Severus backed away to the door, gripping the handle. Lupin followed, furious, forlorn, like Severus had betrayed him. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t think of how to fix his expression. He was only speaking sense in a nonsensical situation. Tripping on nightmares of red hair, he spat on the name of oracle and prophecies: 

“Whatever happens, happens. Oh, well! It’s what’s dealt! We’d only go mad trying to change it, at the danger of becoming like—,” but he stopped short of mentioning the Dark Lord’s prophecy and the lives it ruined, will ruin.

“It’s a madman’s sport. You’ll play it alone and at your own peril.”

And then he tensed, waiting for the cold, or for Lupin to rebut. He waited for the interruption, the attempt to turn him, the refusal to accept. None came for a minute. They only stared at each other over their wands. 

“I can’t not listen to what it says simply because it might hurt to hear it,” Lupin eventually rasped, face gone dark. Severus ignited.

“So you’re calling me a coward?!” 

“I’m asking _why_ would it tell us something we can’t change!”

“Even if we can change it, we shouldn’t! And there’s no ‘we’! There’s you, floundering like a dead fool, and there’s me, watching you! ‘We’ can’t fix _anything.”_

“Why would you just give up?!”

They were close, too close. He could feel their gathered heat. Lupin had rushed to the door as if to leave himself, or stop Severus leaving, or simply in reaction to the possibly breaking of their seal. He didn’t want them to pour out unresolved, hot and stinking. Severus needed to go, to disappear. He felt too much. 

“Severus, please,” Lupin urged. 

“Don’t act familiar! We aren’t going about calling each other our first names.”

“Oh, save the song and dance. I think we’ve been a bit more intimate than a first name basis. I should be calling you ‘dearest heart,’ for all we’ve—.”

“That!” He needed to leave now. “Has no bearing on this! That isn’t real—look to this morning.” Lupin leaned closer and Severus stepped away, hip hitting the doorknob. “Neither of us were operating on right, sane assumptions. This and that are different.”

The other man only leered, a bit like Severus would. It infuriated him.

“Yes, that’s why you’ve led me to a private room, paranoid bastard that you are. Sensible behavior to be alone with the big, _bad_ wolf.”

Severus flinched, cut open by not realizing how trusting he’d been: “Think you’re clever, do you?”

“Actually, yes.” 

“I can outduel you in a broom closet, blindfolded, hands tied to my ankles. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Funny,” Lupin hummed, drawn back, glare so sharp, it boggled. “You were running away so quickly, I couldn’t tell.”

“Says the premier ghost of the Scottish haunts!,” he bellowed, ripping the door open, dousing their row with the grey daylight.

“You’ll not see you stopping any great tragedies, Lupin. No, you’ll just shut up while other people clean up after you. Lord forbid someone with enough bloody secrets grows tired of lugging yours around as well!”

“So you’ll have no more of me, is it?”

“I already—stay _away from me._ If I have to say it again—!”

“Professors!” 

Severus turned, and saw Albus moving toward them, and stormed off. He wouldn’t have any of them, not for the rest of the day—not for the rest of the foreseeable future if he could help it. He heard a scrap of the Headmaster’s unhappy, “—will have to discuss how you both choose to handle your relationship in public,” before snapping around a corner, down to his class. 

* * *

_Who is he to me, in any case? There’s nothing proper happening, nothing more than...lust? No…_

Remus glared down the banquet table, rightfully glared. Days of silence had passed on all sides: no Sterger, no Snape, and no good sleep, either. His crises left him to his thoughts, and how they blistered. 

He hid his scowl behind his cloth napkin to starve the uneasy looks flicking his way, tapping on his every angry feature: _tap,_ and away, _tap tap,_ and around again. Grown witches and wizards shifted in their seats, some glancing his way disapprovingly. He looked down at his plate at Minerva’s pointed cough, anxiety showering through him.

Shame knocked. Bother heckled. 

_So what if I’m fuming!? I’m allowed to be furious! I’ll lose everything! Every bloody thing!_

For the first time, he craved the anonymity of his cheap city living, like the Muggle night shift nurses craved a lonesome smoke in the hospital loading bay, like the peddlers on Knockturn Alley hugged the blind curves and wed its ubiquitous devils. He missed doing awfully unseen. 

He stabbed his skirt steak through to the plate. The table cringed at screeching fork tine on porcelain, and grumbled, and again, _tap-tapped_. Lifting, tearing off chunks, chewing, and slapping the steak back in its juices, Remus bristled with pent-up rage, and had no recourse left but to eat and refill his plate. Helpless meals—beef, roast chicken, herbed potatoes, gravy, baked haddock and stuffing, stewed rice, candied yams and brown sugar split carrots, swimming in sweet.

 _I won’t throw over a friend for him,_ he ranted. 

_A friend I haven’t even confirmed is innocent?,_ an inner voice argued. _Who told my secret years before Snape could even think to? I wouldn’t even be in this position if not for him._

_Snape would’ve been told anyway in order to brew the potion. What position, then? Snape hating me? Not raring to be any way else, not with the Marauders behind us._

He huffed around a huge bite, forcing it down, not even tasting it. _I’ll just have to accept that I’ll do what I must, and he’ll do the same._

His dinner piled into him, never filling, only rubbing at the hellspawned hunger. He let his stomach do the raging and ruining and just fed it as quickly as he could scoop and spoon and scrape. 

An olive pit stopped him. He chopped down and nearly split a tooth, and without pause, reached between his teeth and pulled it out of a molar. Remus turned it in his pinched fingers, the cooked seed spitty and brown, before clicking it down on his plate. 

Again, Snape sat, back straight, staring at his food. His utensils worked and sawed, and soon a bite rose to be eaten. The potions master plowed through his dinner, drank from a vial, and looked healthier than he had all year. Perhaps Sterger hadn’t visited him either. 

_Merlin, why do I still care?_

Finally, Remus realized the good mood around him as the high frenzy dissipated, somehow reflected in the hall. Children stood on the benches, jarring and jockeying for food, yelling over each other, laughing, shouting.

It wasn’t a holiday feast like what approached in a week or so, so much as sudden onset appetite: for noise, too, and for conversation. The straight House tables zigzagged from the shoving and leaping kids visiting their friends, their beaming faces greased with chicken fat and beef drippings spilled down their fronts.

“And so I was telling her—are you listening, Charity? This part is very important—you see, the _angle_ of the charm _exiting_ the wand—,” yammered Flitwick to his right. 

Charity Burbage nodded along dizzily, snatching the tiny professor’s napkins which he conjured one after another in a startling array of colors and patterns.

She gasped, overjoyed to see a silk one, dancing Nifflers printed on it in flashing rainbows. She stole it, ignored her food to twist it into Basset hound, and fiddling with the snout, cried, “Oh, of course! I’d never thought of it that way!”

Catching his fever again, Remus dove back into his meal, deciding the problem was all his chewing. He merely swallowed his bites whole. He joined the high spirits, subsumed them, and dragged them into his chasm painted in pique.

Powering through another steak, he thought the full must be passing close to their ferocious globe. Humans tended to forget their nascent lunacy in quibbling about jobs, assignments—not fair trials, or rights to health and livelihood, but mundane things, like why a man wouldn’t look back.

“S’about the job, y’see? But no one hardly ever cares to do it righ’, jus’ rootin’ out the best one teh blame. Some little thing goes wrong, an’ it’s the animal’s fault! Imagine, a creature as majestic as tha’ bein’ hacked to bits for no good reason!”

Sprout drank with Hagrid, matching the half-giant chalice to chalice. She slumped sloppily onto her armrest, talking with her hands, “S’not right, nooo. Horrid lad, that Draco Mal-malfoy, and know I hate to say it, buuut! It needs saying! 

“He disrespected such a proud beast and something awful, too.” She tried to look stern when Remus peeked over, barely managing concern with her rosy, apple cheeks. “And you know, pride, erm, aud-acity can’t beat the nature of a thing, a proud thing. Can’t do it!”

“Yeh’ve gotta respect it!”

“Yes!” She banged on the table. “Pay homage! Respect nature! Nothing on earth—nothing!—prouder than the wild!”

* * *

Severus left the excited hall to wander the corridors, following his bones. A tug and a cold ache brought him up six flights of stairs and across the castle, swearing the entire way. However, he wasn’t in thrall or possessed by anything but his own will. He had questions that needed answering, the most dangerous lure he’d yet to face. 

No one lurked on the seventh floor besides Severus and the deep shadows on the wall. 

_Three times,_ Sterger instructed. 

The wizard swore again, knowing he would regret this. He crossed the stretch of wall three times, and forged ahead when an entrance appeared. He recognized it well enough as the way into the mysterious rubbish room, stuffed with drawers and tarnished jewelry. 

_Meet me inside,_ and the shadow vanished. Severus grit his teeth and followed it in. 

Only upon reentering the secret room after so many weeks did Severus realize it took after the mill. Or rather, the mill in his mind resembled the room. Forgotten things littered both places, old and broken, and they quickly cottoned onto why Sterger picked this place for him and Lupin to speak. 

Fog began to roll. Severus stepped into it, undaunted, and let it curl around his shins. 

“I’ve left you for too long,” Sterger greeted. “You’re faring terribly.”

He snorted, “Patently wrong: I’ve never been better.” 

The wizard lifted his arms and turned on his heel, flaunting his hearty form. Sterger towered over him and appeared changed in some odd way. It was less a column of black covered in bone and pierced by stars, but more like a tree glimpsed in a black wood—branching, grounded, ancient. There was more life in it than even its breathing. 

Severus eyed it suspiciously. “And where have you been?” 

“Unfortunately, very far off. I’ve been attempting to divine your future together with my dear friend, Remus.”

“Ha! ‘Dear friend,’ my arse! You appeared to have traumatized him!” The notion of friendship with the demon actually kicked a cackle right out of him, but he clipped it short, scowling.

“Whatever melancholia you gave to me has spread to him now, too. Some ‘dear friend’ he is to you.”

“You’re my dearest friend, Severus, and like you say, I make you miserable. One would think it obvious, by that logic, that I like Remus quite a lot.”

“Hmph. Answer me: where did you go?”

It shivered and shrank, and sat on a scuffed nightstand. Then it sighed—not wistfully, as it tended to, but as if winded, like a runner remembering a hard marathon.

“Likely futures create near and narrow paths,” it said, bidding Severus approach. He stayed put, and it let him. “Distant possibilities are as told: distant. I traveled as far into the forest, down as many paths as I could before thinking to return. I found quite a few lives for you out there with your Lupin—.”

“He isn’t _mine,_ ” he reminded it. 

“You insult me. He is more yours than anyone’s, and you his. I’ll not have my gift rejected again. Rejection is tedious.” 

The staff meeting and the row had been days ago, but felt like yesterday, as did the non-conversation afterwards. The pair had sat, each ignoring the other, answering Dumbledore’s questions with cool politeness and nodding a wooden farewell. Since then, no other words passed between them. If they still shared the mill, he wouldn’t know, as he spent every night wallowing or fixing the imagined place uninterrupted.

Lupin sulked out in the fields, maybe, or had traveled a ways off, or never arrived at all. Severus couldn’t tell. He never looked for him, or if he did, couldn’t parse the distant hay mounds from a greying head. 

“Well, what did you say to _him_ to have him twisted so out of shape,” Severus protested anyway. This was what he needed to know—this and if it would tell him. “That idiot seemed almost interested in you and now—!”

Sterger bristled, and Severus finally noticed the claws in its crown sat askew. They tilted like in a wind, and sprouted tendrils—tiny shoots of leaves—as if transitioning through a miniature spring. Did the demon have seasons? And why spring, well into fall?

As he wondered, its leaves unfolded like freshly hatched butterfly wings, inflated and turned bright green, like familiar eyes, and then to autumn gold and scarlet. 

“What’s happening to you?”

“I went out into the world,” it buzzed, canting his head, and the perpetual sun in the room lit the scraggly lichen on its mask, “and the world came into me. It is _awful,_ but I might enjoy being changed. So could you.”

“What, you threatened Lupin with this...metamorphosis?”

Now Sterger scoffed. “That man only knows metamorphosis. It is why he never feels like himself. No, I told him something that, at the time, seemed inevitable: that you would betray him, and reveal his condition to oust him from the school.” 

“You said I would—well. Will I?” 

The acid twinkle landed on him from under a brow of fuzzy moss, the moss yellowing as it dried. 

“You always ask after outcomes you can help. If you don’t want to betray him, simply don’t.”

“But why did I do it in the first place? For slaps and tickles?”

It felt ridiculous to treat a future so flippantly. What power did Severus have over his actions if they were already foretold? Even if the future had options, Sterger had traveled so far to find a good one that it had literally grown moss. 

_But didn’t it just confirm that such a future exists, with both of us in it?_ Severus struggled for a breath, finding the notion too impossible, and almost preferring the promise of dying alone. That he could predict. Togetherness was…

“Like the first farmer ever given a grain and told to make food,” murmured Sterger, watching him think. “I’m so old, you see, that I’ve met them, the first farmers, since as long as there have been decisions, there have been regrets. You remind me of them.

“You betray him,” it finished, “because he helps his wrongfully convicted friend escape arrest.”

Severus was galled. “Not Sirius Black, never. That man is a murderer—.”

“So are you, in your own mind.”

“Yes! I am! I killed her, same as him, and I showed remorse while he _laughed_ about it, stark raving mad in the streets. We both deserve prison—that—! I won’t accept it!”

“You don’t have to. Let it lead you to betrayal, and kill whatever grows far out where only I’ll ever see it. Or—oh, I’m being called.” 

Severus stalked through the fog to the fading creature, shouting, “You can’t be serious?!”

* * *

Remus set the small, round table summoned into his living room. He draped a dark tablecloth over it, made an altar of red candles, added a labradorite plinth borrowed from Trelawney after dinner, and a pick of wildflowers. A slice of bread patted with butter, a dish of milk, and a spot of honey joined the inedibles and a bottle of wine, as did a cut of the steak from dinner that Snape enjoyed, fatty and gristled. Lastly, a mirror propped on the plinth, and finally, Remus’s bright red scarf. 

He lit his candles, completing his offering. 

“My! What an impressive reception.” 

Remus stared down the specter sitting at his altar. This was an older, more ritual magic than he was comfortable with, but he had to trust the lore. He figured the rules for a unique being might lend to improvisation. Hoping to emulate the library, he pulled out the second chair and sat down.

“Thank you for coming,” he replied. 

“Hm. I rarely eat food, you know.” The bread exploded in mold. The butter went rancid, and the milk curdled. “Many thanks for the meal.”

“It only seemed polite since I plan to impose again. I, uh,” he whispered, gutted. “That’s how you eat?”

“I believe it’s in some of your books. I must say, I appreciate the decorum here. I feel very welcome.”

“...Any time.”

Remus couldn’t close his eyes and drift off to the peaceful mill since their last talk. He understood now that Sterger, the cause of that unrest, chatted amicably both times. Just now, it seemed sincere in its appreciation, like it was touched by his efforts. It struck him that the creature perhaps didn’t mean to hurt others as it did. It simply did, regardless of its intentions. 

That didn’t make it benevolent, or malintended, or fair. It only was, existing through pain, even if it thought itself kind. Such was its nature. 

“You look different,” said the wizard.

“I suppose. I’ve just returned from abroad.” 

“Did you enjoy your trip?”

It mulled him over, then relaxed. “Yes,” and nothing more.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions.” He tried to settle into the chair, but the impromptu transfigured journals-turned-seats were too barebones to offer much comfort. 

“Well, if you see that as an imposition, like you said.” 

It let the sentiment hang while it investigated the wine. Laying its claw on it, the little condensation on the dark bottle turned to a thin layer of frost. Fascinated, it wrapped its entire hand around the bottleneck and waited. Soon the bottle ticked, squeaked, and split, a mass of burgundy ice bursting from its shell. 

“Allow me to save you the time and breath, as your life might be very short, and I wouldn’t want you to waste it on me,” Sterger proposed. 

Remus held still to listen, and in preparation, had brushed up on his Occlumency. Just so, as he waited, willfully ignoring the penetrating cold nearby, he felt the twinge in his head—a shift, like something moving. Then the deer skull mask bobbed, and Sterger spoke. 

“You plan to ask if I was ever human, and again, I was not.” 

Remus tensed, awaiting the next push. It came, with him not strong enough to stop it, but ready enough at least to notice it. 

_Of course,_ he confirmed, looking away.

“Ah, the persecuted fairy horror: you think I’m a poor soul cast out of the afterlives, the hells and paradises, forced to wander the earth until it bloated. You think me deformed.” 

It left the offerings be, and gave Remus its full attention. It worried him that even as he broke eye contact, it still seemed to feel his thoughts.

“The issue of course being that I outage the millennia. I remember when humans first learned magic enough to teach themselves. I’m older than your kingdoms and your schools, even your curses and cures.” 

It waxed poetic in a startlingly knowable way that made Remus’s heart pound. 

“Except you would know the future if you lived through it during your human life. If you can know what’s ahead,” he argued, palms prickling, “logic suggests you can travel backwards into the distant past, in order to tell our futures to us now.”

“Yes, and make it my business to portend your fatal errors,” it sniffed. Now it readjusted in its chair and stroked the plinth to watch it discolor, crack, and puff to dust. “But again! I’m older than the hill you could eventually die on. And right now you’re struggling with a different matter entirely: loyalty or—.”

“Or curiosity, maybe. Please don’t try to distract me.” He didn’t want to think about Sirius Black or Snape. Sterger favored him pityingly. 

“‘Curiosity’? Come now, we’re a little past that. You can admit—ah! And now you’re thinking back to my being the dregs of some sad human spirit.” 

It sounded exasperated, and Remus sat up more, stung by its dismissal. It plagued him with its painful projections and now _his_ theories were oh-so-ridiculous?

The moon spread three-quarters full on their frozen, rotten meal. Candle flames sputtered, throwing shadows on the red scarf’s loose weave that read like letters on the tablecloth. Maybe it was a warning to curb his tongue, to toe the line, but he wouldn’t.

Not with the filling moon beside him and his messy bedroom to his back, stinking of him and only him. Not with the once inaccessible luxury of spite now replacing the wolfsbane flowers and the vines, and the pink sun and tangy rust, and the warmth of skin and beating breath. Not after the kiss, or the sleepless silence, or his sore joy at seeing Snape do so well from afar.

He was _so helpless._ So now _he_ would be the scorpion, and it, the frog. He felt it draw back as he strung his thoughts together, felt the table rattle, saw the candles blow out—and spoke anyway. 

“Imagine,” he said, “you, a soul, not even a ghost, and years—no, decades—pass by with you trapped, tortured by an endless purgatory. You fly by night and start to visit others. You see their living souls, their insecurities, their regrets. It’s a power you already had.”

Sterger shook and he kept pushing. 

“You start to travel backwards, trying to see when it went wrong for you. One road leads to the next, then another, further back until you’ve run through your entire life, because what’s a handful of decades within a hundred years as an outcast?

“So you keep going, and your life bleeds into your parents’, and then their parents’, and their friends’, and then complete strangers’, further back forever until you see too much,” he smiled cruelly, “until you transform, some would say.”

The creature stood shorter once it broke away from the table, as if Remus had hacked off a piece of it. Then it expanded with a blood curdling shriek, swallowing the room in pitch blackness and the stench of rotten meat. The steak turned to flies that shaved through the dark with gruesome, carrion buzzing. 

Remus was too cold to be afraid. How could he be when, in that very moment, his curse rolled over hungrily, sensing a wounded animal? It wasn't his nature to savage it. It was a resentfully made choice that he would gladly let become him.

He was tired of being polite. He wanted, for once, to pounce. 

“You forget who you used to be, until all you can think to do is cobble yourself together with others’ mistakes. You’ve gone so far into history that you go dormant until some sorry bastard you vaguely recognize trips over you in the dark.” 

The black receded in a wink, so quick it blew his hair back. Remus glowered at the creature gnashing its pointed teeth at him. 

“Show me your face,” he dared it. With an echoing bellow, his window shattered.

He cried out, spelling a shield up to protect his face from the flying glass. When he looked again, he was by himself, holding down the carpet as a chilling wind buffeted the room. Squinting through his fingers, he saw the blinding white moon, and against it, a fluttering shadow—almost birdlike—descending on the forest. 

_Remus finally slept well enough to dream, but too lightly to stay in it. Every tick, click, and creak in his quarters made him jump, expecting to see Sterger standing over his bed. Eventually, he relaxed enough to smell the fields. He saw the shine of the fixed glass windows, sun glinting off of them and the copper patch on his chest._

_He wore the wire like a badge of honor, and hurried to the mill, swearing he could see the tall shape framed by the nudged open pane. He wanted to be there, and arrived just in time to reach out to where Snape ventured outside._

_“Just a night, please,” he panted. The other man hesitated and, blessedly, reached back, cool fingertips kissing his own._

A squeaky bedspring woke him up. 

“Dammit,” Remus choked, considering his tingling fingers. He touched them to his naked chest, over where the wire sat, over his heart. 

He wished he had the smell left in his scarf, but it’d been ruined by melted candles, bad food, and the thawing wine. If he’d known this would happen, he would never have offered it up. Not if he knew it was all he’d have left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	7. Want and Wilderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It ended with a wedding night.

More days passed at a crawl, but soon they reached the week before the full. The first Hogsmeade trip and the Halloween feast approached as well, and despite troubles with the Dementors and Remus’s creeping depression, he blended into Hogwarts’ festivities. 

Young couples tittered, new and in love. Remus tried on different masks—endeared and neutral—anything but envious of the spotty teens and the silly ideas their smothering gave him. 

_Drag him out of his nasty jars for a pint at the Hog’s Head?,_ he ribbed himself, building a scene in his mind. _Share a story he can poke fun at. Give him something to rip apart to keep his hands busy, then get him back, yes. Steal a kiss and watch him panic over little bits of napkin stuck to his hands._

_Sneak upstairs, rent a room...talk after. Touch his neck. Dare him to say something nice._

He and Snape still hadn’t spoken since a week ago, now. They should have at least traded a barb, butted over Neville Longbottom’s poor performance or Harry’s glory-seeking, rule-piddling this or that, as if either of them was a stickler for rules. Lost points. Detention. A subtle hint at Remus’s furry problem. Remus avoiding too much attention, and Snape giving it. Something. He never would’ve expected to miss the simpler, pettier days. 

_He’ll have to come by today._

Tonight he started taking the Wolfsbane again. Snape would need to deliver it, or invite him down to take it in his office. Either way, they would see each other. Remus nearly wished they wouldn’t, for how much it embarrassed him to want to. 

The werewolf worked through his whole schedule with building anticipation. He entered his office after dinner and found he might as well had saved the effort. A steaming goblet sat on his desk, a note stuck onto it. 

_“Drink all of it. No sugar. No alcohol,”_ it read without address. 

“Unbelievable.” 

He shook his head, dropping his bag in his chair. The potion steamed, as odoriferous as usual, if not more.

“This is ridiculous.” 

Remus guzzled the hot potion, fighting it down, and tossed the cup aside. Then he fixed his cuffs and wiped the corners of his mouth. Steeling himself, he headed for the dungeons. He’d had enough of playing the leper. 

As he trudged into the castle depths, the Wolfsbane took effect. The werewolf’s lips tingled and numbed, and his racing heartbeat wilted to a thump and picked up again. Too late, he noticed the pearly veil of a ghost’s hem up ahead. He plowed through the Fat Friar, the Hufflepuff ghost loosing an ungodly squeal as Remus staggered through. 

“Merlin, are you alright?!,” he asked, alarmed.

The Friar pirouetted into a bouncing float, giving Remus the growing spark of mischief in his eye. Flustered became impish in a split second, and he looked on, bewildered, as the old ghost giggled and pinwheeled to the narrow stairway leading up into the castle proper, set upon the world by a sudden, explosive glee.

“Quite alright, young fellow!,” the Friar cried, exaltant. “T’is wonderfully that an inkling has come over me! Believe that I may cause a spot of trouble and on purpose at that!”

He looped through the air and vanished through the stones Peeves-ishly, trailing spirit vapors. Remus blinked at where he had floated, perplexed. First the students two weeks ago, then the staff this week, and now the ghosts were this electric?

 _It’s more than the full moon causing this,_ Remus decided, carrying on at a quicker clip.

That was still most of a week away and even while the werewolf felt its approach, he obviously felt it more keenly than most. Even if he livened up or deflated as beckoned, something stronger affected the rest of the school.

 _Halloween._ Fae and mischievous spirits returned when the veil to the other side was thinnest. Of course, a magic castle was susceptible to that same high. Wondering for the first time if Sterger might plan to catch them at its strongest, Remus jogged on his stuttering pulse. 

He and Snape _had_ to speak. They had to strategize, join notes, and consider the night looming ahead. He reigned himself into a saunter, sighting the pair chatting beside Snape’s office door. Aurora Sinistra drew patterns in the air, which the potions master watched avidly.

 _So they do speak_ , Remus realized.

Both meeting and defying expectations, the astronomer embodied a portrait in motion. She showed out as always in conservative robes, with her thick, gold-threaded dreadlocks woven into a goddess braid around her head and spilling down her back. The two Slytherins stood, nodding and rebutting, in dark matching colors down to their short-heeled, booted feet. 

_Of course he’s friends with every woman on staff,_ he thought to himself, a bit daunted. 

Snape looked absurd in a deep green rubber apron, elbow-length rubber gloves, and a baby blue medical mask pulled under his chin to let him speak. His striking features showed between angry red lines where safety gear had squeezed his face. Bug-eyed goggles stuck onto his forehead like bulbous horns, and with his hair stringy, tied, and tucked in his collar, he was hardly trying to impress her. 

That said, he and Remus never had a conversation about each other’s preferences. Remus was all types welcome, and he felt comfortable in Snape’s attraction to at least men, but that wasn’t a given. Maybe this was Snape being interested. Perhaps that lent to the problem of reality versus dreams: what if Snape sought other options? No complicated history or dark fae or destined betrayal, but an easy chat in a hallway.

The way the dungeon-dweller hunched forward, fascinated, still taller than the astronomer despite her being above average height, formed a fetching picture.  
He recalled looking down at Charity and feeling he fell short.

“We aren’t centaurs, obviously, so divination via star mapping is a bit lost to us. Humans aren’t known for their foresight,” said Sinistra. 

Snape rolled his eyes and leaned _—leaned—_ folding his arms far too casually. He didn’t even look like himself, odd get-up aside. 

“Surprise of all surprises, you mean people are idiots.”

“Well, that’s a given.”

“Hm, and with your field, I’d thought you be more the optimist.”

And she actually cracked a smile. “I look at the sky all night, sure, but not to wish on shooting stars. It’s a science, one of the closest ones to magic without losing any of its laws. The _art_ of potions should take note.”

“Unlikely.”

Sinistra paused and looked askance at Remus, causing Snape to do the same. Then the two cooled practically in tandem. He nodded, asking them to excuse his rudeness, and unlike any sane man, he stepped closer, showing no fear. 

“If I could borrow him for a moment,” he asked, pointing at Snape.

“No need, you were just leaving,” Snape snipped back. 

“Oh, fantastic,” he grinned sharply. “My apologies, Professor Sinistra—.”

The pretty woman threw up her hands and strode past him, unbidden. “I’m staying out of it. Evening to you both.”

She beat her retreat and Remus wondered if she knew something he didn’t. Just as she swept past, however, Snape sucked his teeth and pulled away into his office—neglecting to bounce his door off Remus’s nose like the werewolf expected. 

_If I was meant to be bitten,_ he figured, tailing his—tailing Snape into the creepy den, _at least it wasn’t by a vampire. Anywhere he brews likely counts as a second home and I doubt I’m being invited. Dared, at best._

The dark dun stone and the shadowed shelves held out their choir of pale, jarred specimens, peering down with cloudy and sunken eyes like to catch a troublemaker. The Slytherin stormed behind his desk, centered atop which was a huge, tin wash tub. Snape had already filled it with sludge. Potions scraps floated in a pool of noxious brown liquid, bubbling under a chunky layer of milky solids. Mashed stems and root pulp stewed with shredded skins around a hard, hairy bezoar swimming in the yuck.

Snape dug in an open drawer for a chalky powder and tossed it over the goop. Remus watched it sizzle and start to glow. Then without warning, a cloud of lavender gas seeped up from the soup, swept down the length of the lab and singed Remus’s nose hairs.

Snape yanked down his goggles and pulled his mask up over his mouth and nose, disappearing into the skin of a mad scientist as he summoned a stiff wind. It seemed he meant to blow the gas into the corridor. Unfortunately, as Remus barely ducked out of its way, a puff of it tagged him and made him sputter. He was immediately hit with a dizzy spell, and fumbled for a chair, clutching his throat. 

“You idiot!” Snape shouted like he’d been punched. Remus squinted at him through a blur of tears and saw a slash of black wand through the pale smoke. The sludge and horrid gas vanished with a _pop!_

Coughing, eyes streaming, Remus accepted a glass of water from insistent, angry hands. He tried to drink it. 

“No, it’s for your eyes! Don’t _touch_ —move!” 

He heard the slap of gloves being ripped off and thrown at his feet. Remus was guided into a wooden chair as wobbly and unyielding as one could hope for from Snape’s domain. Holding his hands well away from his crying eyes, he surrendered to the hard jabs of a soaked rag.

He wrinkled his nose, wheezing. The rag stunk like sulfur. 

“Bloody idiot, you could’ve blinded yourself! Who said to come in here!?”

“Hahh, hngh. I didn’t know you’d be fumigating.”

“Shut up! Look here!”

Sharp fingers dug in his chin. He winced, but said nothing as Snape continued washing his eyes. His discomfort was at least noticed, in that the grip squeezed for a beat and let up. 

Eventually, the sting faded and he could squint up at the other man, taken aback. The flushing created a hilarious, dove white vignette around the terrifying, science fiction goggles. Snape came gradually into focus below them, having shed his outer robes, mask, and finally the goggles, to see better. The apron, however, stayed, untied and swinging from his neck. 

“I can’t even give you a bezoar, you knuckle-headed oaf, as it’ll counteract your potion. Can you see?”

He stared at the wizard’s irate expression, framed softly like for a funeral picture.

“Yes, but I’m a bit dizzy.”

Snape dipped his smelly rag in the glass again and scrubbed at Remus’s cheeks, scowling.

“That will have to run its course. Lucky for you, you only caught a whiff.”

“What was what? Not leftovers from the Wolfsbane?,” he asked incredulously.

“Yes! Exactly that!”

“Why would you _keep_ it?” 

“To recycle what I can. Ingredients aren’t cheap and to me, that little wolfsbane is merely an irritant. To _you,_ the full brunt of that gas would’ve dropped you dead, you _stupid_ man!”

No doubt ill-advisedly, Remus chuckled, “It’s nice to know you care.”

“I want nothing to do with you, including sweeping up your corpse.”

“See, now that hurts,” and it did. Remus truly meant it as it slipped out, aggravating him by not being one of his careful truths, but a reckless one. He sat up in his chair, cheeks buzzing.

“Why do you say it like that: ‘want nothing to do with me’? We see each other when we sleep, and I _see_ you looking for me—.”

“I’ll say whatever ends this inane conversation.”

Snape let him go brusquely and checked his pupils in wandlight. He then made the werewolf take a few deep breaths and track his finger. Passing his tests, Remus accepted another glass of water, this one for drinking, while Snape swore and menaced his shelves, back tight, giving Remus a chance to watch him. 

He recalled the body he once felt under a grey night shirt. A renewed appetite, solid sleep, it did him a good turn. And the Gryffindor supposed the bit of hard labor Snape did sporting his massive attitude led to a grown man’s weight, defined arms and thighs. He took him in, memorizing the stark black hair in its leather cord, how it showed off the small hairs of his neck, and the slope of his lower back promising a firm bottom under the black tunic.

It wasn’t fair to stay at odds with him looking like that. 

“Stop it! I can feel those yellow eyes groping me,” the potioneer snapped. “If you’re feeling better, you can leave.”

Then Snape turned to him, threat primed, and blinked, saying instead, “What’s that face for? Why do you look like that?”

Remus had been daydreaming. He imagined wrapping himself around the other man, settling onto his surly lap, something likely as unforgiving as his chairs, and laying his kiss down on him, trading breath for breath until they both were as pliant as sculptor’s clay. A potion bubbled softly beside them in his mind, suffusing the dark room with his favorite chemical-herb-and-musk.

“Look like what?,” he deflected. “Tear-gassed? Pissed off?”

“No,” and then from confronting Sterger, Remus could feel the subtle push into his mind. 

He glared at the Legilimens and altered his fantasy:

_In it, he sat legs together in Snape’s padded office chair, the other man straddling him this time with Remus cupping his arse. Using that smug grip, he pushed Snape’s arousal into his belly, then ran his hands up his arched back to bury them in the wizard’s loose hair, leather cord strung around his wrist._

_A flushed Snape bent down asking to be spoiled, and with a caught breath, this kiss galled sweet—it was sinful, filthy, friction building as they ground into each other. His fantasy self tongued so far back into the Slytherin’s mouth that Snape gripped the chair back until it creaked. He gasped like when the werewolf first bit down on his shoulder in the mill, and slick against his middle, Remus felt him—_

“Christ!” Snape spun away, holding his stomach. Remus hoped it flipped so hard he felt his dinner tumble. 

“We can talk like we’re decent to one another,” he pressed, “or you can keep sneaking through my head and find whatever else I can…” 

A common myth: werewolves could smell emotion. If humans, animal though they were, had anything like pheromones, Remus didn’t know about them. Whatever alchemy made the room smell like turpentine had him out of his seat, only to be warned off—by a finger. Not a hex, not a shout, not an insult, but the one, stained finger held up to beg he wait.

 _“One second, please,”_ it asked. _“Stop for just one second.”_

A strange wildness between them was held desperately at bay. This was what Remus wanted: to win back nearness. He wanted Snape flushed and bright-eyed, perched on what Remus might do next to tug him closer. 

Snape breathed, “We can’t run around here, doing what we— _whatever_ comes to mind—without consequences. Lupin—!”

“What do you even think I’m here for? I don’t want a fling! This,” he gestured at the burning space between them, “is so far beyond anything sensible. We aren’t colleagues sharing an inconvenience, and we aren’t some, some _embarrassing slip-up_ we’re both trying to shake off. I’m here to work it out! This is—!”

“You don’t know what this bloody is! _I don’t know._ It’s born from horror and suffering, and if it’s beyond me, it’s beyond _you.”_

The other man started to pace, stomping, shaking the jars on his shelves: 

“I won’t go running off with it into the unknown when it could be anything! I don’t understand it. I don’t control the thing that brought it here!”

“Some of this is just basic human nature,” Remus argued, only to receive the most helpless look, a silent plea. The look vanished behind more frustration. 

“But that’s not all of it, not by half!,” Snape carried on. “All I know is that the demon has disappeared again, called away by gods-know-what, and maybe if we do nothing, it won’t come back. It’s all I can hope for.” 

Remus understood then that he knew things Snape didn’t. His learning curve with the creature was apparently quite steep, not unpredictably because it was a fully realized entity when he met it, much more than just whispers in hallways. And when he met it, he did so honestly, reducing his torment to plain, evil reality, something he knew quite well.

“I summoned it again,” he confessed, drawing up to accept Snape’s disbelief, and then outrage, and then awe—and outrage again. 

He stalked closer and Remus welcomed him to it: “Do you think this is a joke, Lupin? I can only pray it leaves me alone, and you’re calling out to it—again!”

“I drove it off, too.” 

“Moron! How?”

They were reasonably close now, where he could hook a hand into Snape’s if he wanted. Instead, he shrugged, letting the other man stick his finger in his face. 

“It could be back as soon as this Sunday,” Remus said, folding his arms. He wondered if it was bravery or cunning that sat back, satisfied at the glint of understanding reflecting back at him from Snape’s eyes. 

In a flash of dawning realization, Snape cursed, “Piss, Halloween.”

Remus nodded.

“It’d be best if we spent it together. We can compare notes in preparation, since it usually comes after sundown.”

Snape squinted, distrusting. “I’ll not skip through Hogsmeade hand-in-bloody-hand with you, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

He grinned.

“I’d be honored if you did, but I’m hardly asking you on a date. Although, if you’re secretly interested, old Aberforth at the Hog’s Head does a discount on Firewhisky: new couples only.”

“‘Only’ so can he can get them pissing drunk and help them break up. Get out of my office. I’m sick of looking at you.”

He didn’t feel quite as kicked out as he had three times already. Snape left him to _tsk_ at the barren wash tub, hosting an openness in the once foreboding atmosphere when he turned a looser back, untucked his hair, grumbled.

Remus wasn’t eleven, so the gross specimens jiggling in their jams didn’t bother him. He picked his favorite—a three-headed toad—and examined it while he asked, “So, can I expect to see you on Sunday evening? My office this time, quaint as I find yours.”

Snape looked at him through the hair slipping over his shoulder: “Maybe. Now leave, or I’ll throw something.”

Remus noticed then that he’d slid the hair tie onto his wrist. It peeked out over his cuff, like it had in Remus’s fantasy. The werewolf hummed knowingly, making the potions master bristle.

“Will do, just the one question more—.”

“What!?”

Remus quirked an eyebrow. “Since when did you give a toss about divination?”

“I—Out!”

He arrived to another unmanned goblet on Saturday, this time with a new note. 

_“Lupin,_ ” it began. Remus raised both brows, impressed. _“Drink all of it. No sugar. No alcohol. —S.”_

“Practically a love letter,” he mumbled, fanning himself with the scrap of spare parchment, triumphant. Happening to flip it over, he saw the note had type font knitting across its back. He brought it close and read: 

“—1855, sightings of the Heckletonne Lich were reduced to a few dozen in twenty years, as opposed to the previous hundred reports every genera—.”

 _Chronicles of the Daring Undead in East Pembrook,_ a regional comprehensive by Alicia Skittering-Way. He knew this book as a great resource on Dark deeds, and coincidentally as one of the many missing tomes from Pince’s collection. He’d looked for it just last week.

He flipped back to Snape’s spiky scrawl and cringed, hoping the man made it to Sunday. Snape might be broke, whipped, and trussed on the gates by sundown.

* * *

Severus dallied outside of Lupin’s office, overcome with nerves. Hideous but true, he wasted time in front of the closed wooden door, rechecking his notes and fighting the urge to slink away. He’d crammed his portfolio with a few salvaged chapters he spent the afternoon combining into pamphlets. All the calm he won from the methodical paper sifting, reading, rearranging, scratching through to circle relevant information—it all washed into self-doubt when he tried to knock.

_Lupin chased me down for this. I’m obviously welcome._

However, he stopped by earlier to hand deliver Lupin’s potion for the first time this cycle, only to interrupt a tea with him and that pest Potter. Lupin thanked him so cordially—the picture of an affable colleague. He left puzzled, wondering where the man hid what felt like limitless stores of spiteful, eagle-eyed impertinence.

Where rolled the hint of hunger? The uncertainty set him off. Severus could so easily feel unwanted. That usually wouldn’t bother him. He often liked to be difficult, and thought about leaving before he made a fool of himself, playing at someway else. 

“You can come in, you know.” 

He glared at Lupin propped against the doorframe. The werewolf waved impudently and stepped aside, inviting him in, holding his narrowed gaze with amused, green-gold patience.

The werewolf nodded like he understood.

“Or we can spend an evening in the hallway. Excellent choices, both.”

Choosing not to comment, embarrassed he was caught acting meek, Severus pushed into Lupin’s office. They shared a slice of personal space when he slipped past, his shoulder brushing Lupin’s. Looking at him askance, Severus cracked his neck, glad for the visceral crunch. At the same time, he’d already prepared for this meeting, too eager to wash and dress in his cleanest, most plain clothes.

He’d soaked in the potion the wolf seemed to like so much. He glanced sidelong at the sighing man, winning back some confidence when the werewolf’s nostrils flared.

”Come on then,” he sneered, entering with chin held aloft.

Warm wood and portraits of meadows and green cliffs greeted him. Trunks and wardrobes full of props lined the walls, the occasional one knocking with a critter Lupin kept for his childish tricks. The chairs all had cushions that, while not overstuffed, were a rich maroon that treated the eyes. Worlds away from that pompous arse Lockhart, Lupin actually managed to impress. 

Severus beelined for the desk already covered in open books, threw his leather case down, and began unpacking all over Lupin’s own messy spread. With a few quick glances, he pushed anything that seemed useless to the floor. Pages fluttered around his boots, and once, he looked down and, livid, snatched a square bottle of Ogden’s Best from an open desk drawer. 

It was still sealed, amber liquid sloshing up to the cork, but he slammed it down, hard, on a stack of handmade pamphlets. 

“Do you drink with your potion,” he seethed, “despite _explicit instructions_ not to?” 

“Not at all.” Lupin swung the door closed, watching the hinges until they clicked. “Not sure if you noticed, but I _can_ read.” 

Severus flicked the edge of _Bemmels_ _& Jhonen, _an obscure anthology of creature myths in Western Europe. He read it for fun once as a second year, and found it trite. 

“Barely.” 

Shuffling through abstracts, he was surprised to find a few promising Muggle articles. Having to accept they weren’t there by accident, or else he’d been this nervous to meet minds with an idiot, he sat in Lupin’s desk chair, making the Defense professor laugh. 

“The firewhiskey’s for you. Call it a gift for meeting with me,” Lupin grinned, sitting across from him. He prodded his chair into squashed affair, something even less comfortable if Severus were asked, and sank into it. 

He sniffed at his “gift.” “Did you forget that I’ve just regrown a liver?”

The werewolf’s face fell, and Severus, smirking, settled into his seat. He picked up two bits of parchment to read, then flinched, upset: “Who gave you these?”

“What, your notes? You left them with the potion. What’s wrong with them?”

“Th—,” but he was mistaken. Yes, he had to be. For a second, he thought he recognized Sterger’s handwriting. However, he remembered writing these and sticking them to Lupin’s Wolfsbane. He skimmed them to be sure and, shaking them off, tossed them in the bin.

“Rubbish now,” he huffed. Eyeing the Ogden’s, he made an executive decision and summoned two stout glasses. He shot the seal off of the bottle and vanished the cork.

“But your liver,” Lupin protested, wide eyed. Severus waved him off and started to pour, checking for a clock and finding one.

“It’s been long enough since your last dose,” he said, referencing the Wolfsbane. “You can drink now.”

He gave himself a shot to start, nose wrinkling at the strong stink of alcohol. He rarely drank, but felt he might as well now, before the night went any further. He suspected he’d need it. Passing the other glass to Lupin, he threw his back, coughing around the burn. 

He glared tearily when the werewolf hesitated, then went all in and took his shot without blinking. 

“Show off.” Severus reached for the first paper to catch his interest: “It What Wanders: A Review of the Scottish Restless Dead.”

Hours passed, and evening met the night while Severus snorted, pawing through Lupin’s desk. He opined while he snooped, “If you think _that thing_ is just some sorry sod with nowhere to go on a Friday night, I’ll buy a hat just to bloody eat it. I reject your premise!”

Lupin smacked down one of Severus’s own passages. 

“You thought so yourself!,” he argued. “The one recorded sighting of the Iberian _sans savoir_ is the same being without sentience. You’d commit to a mindless proto-poltergeist but not a self-aware soul plus years of suffering? We know _souls_ exist. Taking them is our capital punishment. 

“Look at Dementors! That, solitary, with a higher mind—it’s possible! Take a powerful enough wizard, enough time, and it can happen! Clearly it _has._ ”

“Absolutely not! What’s this?”

He held up a wrapped bundle, deftly peeling back the cloth to reveal a cheap leather pouch. He sniffed it, whiffed funky earth, and laughed.

“Hippy! I should’ve known by your overgrown sideburns!”

Lupin bent across the desk and batted his contraband back into the drawer. “Appetite, pain management—why am I letting you look through my things?” 

“Because you’ve been drinking,” he harrumphed, pulling out another leather case, this one hard covered. “What’s this?”

“Ah, that.” Lupin gestured for it, and Severus, pausing, handed it over. 

The werewolf frowned in concentration and shook it into his palm. A pair of clear-framed glasses slid out. The Slytherin hacked when they were plucked up and pushed onto the Gryffindor’s nose. Lupin pushed them down, folded his hands, and gave his best, fool’s gold twinkle.

“How do they look?,” he joked. 

_Suits him,_ Severus thought, swiping sweat from his upper lip. The glasses brought attention to his eyes, now softened from drinking, and the clear frames made him look easy-going and kind.

“Grandfatherly,” he replied. “Those and all your greys—I’ve seen younger looking relics hitting on cashier girls at the pound shops.”

“You’re just upset they bought up all the cheap glass jars for their home projects. I wasn’t going to mention it, but I noticed your pickled voles seemed a bit cramped, three to a jar. A shame, that.” 

”They’re dead. They’ll hardly notice, you nosey old gossip.”

“‘Experienced’ does nicely. ‘Curious,’” chuckled into a treatment on fairy weddings. It’d been tacked onto one of the essays on pagan rites. They had been pulling it apart when Lupin started in again about the _sluagh._ ”Also? Hilarious, coming from you. I’d rather get back to this.”

“Hm, easy way to get trapped off. What starts as a picnic, now you’re bonded for life,” Severus pointed out, deciding a change of subject might be for the best. He stood and felt the liquor rush to his feet. He pushed his glass away nearly an hour ago to catch up with himself and was still a bit unsteady. 

“It’s too simple, but then again, pagans were persecuted, so simple meant discreet.”

Lupin started counting on his fingers. Severus watched him with furrowed brow, listening quite accidentally without snarking back. Only, he talked so easily, it was an odd pleasure to be taught.

“A sacred place, an officiant, vows, a handfasting. Some places jump a broom, and maybe there are rings. Have that out in a field somewhere, and you’re married without being burned.

“Some people still do it.” Severus dropped a quill and bent to pick it up. 

He was too warm and had opened his robes to let the cool air hit his clothes. When he bent double, his robes blacked out everything behind, muffled some noises. So when he stood again, he was surprised by Lupin leaned in, blinking slowly, pupils blown, chin propped on the back of his hand, as if watching a show. 

“...desk,” the man finished mumbling.

“What’s that about a desk?,” asked Severus, head canted.

“Oh, ahem. It’s…,” the werewolf hemmed, looking away, scratching a blushing ear. “Well, it’s vulgar now.”

Severus thought on it and rested his hip on the desk, folding his arms. 

“Tell me.”

“I—alright.” Lupin cleared his throat, standing himself and walking around the desk to speak quietly. He didn’t know why, when they were the only ones in the room. “Remember the second or so meeting about the Wolfsbane, that debriefing. You did the _presentation_ about—.”

“Impotence,” Severus grinned. He’d enjoyed that meeting, until, “You made that slick comment about the size of the ‘x.’ Although, knowing now, I should’ve made it bigger.”

He glanced down where each man cast a shadow on the other’s shoes. His glance traveled between their hips angled toward each other, and he looked up again, just left of the darkening olive gaze.

 _I’m not nearly unfazed enough to drink with him._ He was comfortable. Lupin was warm. 

The whole room smelled like chocolate and whisky for how much they’d spilled, and how many little indulgences he’d found stashed in Lupin’s desk. The man was a glutton. 

“Well, after that,” the wolf hummed, sitting against the desk. He crushed paper underneath, and his eyes glittered, like he thought that funny. “After that, I swore that, on my next date, I’d _seduce_ my partner on top of your desk.”

“ _That’s_ what you said just now?” He heard one of them sigh and knowing for damn sure that he was too close—.

“No, actually.” Lupin eased to standing, sliding his hands into his pockets, like to will himself not to touch. “I saw your arse when you bent over and said, ‘A shame it’s not your desk.’” 

Severus leaned in, and Lupin waited, eyes cast down to his mouth. He suddenly felt self-conscious about his crooked teeth, and it gave him enough of a push to step back. 

“So,” he broke away, sidestepping to retake his seat, ignoring Lupin stretching beside him. “About the creature you’ve set out for our blood: where did you send it?”

“Right, it flew away, literally. Unsupported, just took off over the woods.”

“That’s not that impressive. I can do that—learned by watching.”

“Of course you did. You’re very impressive. I want to kiss you.”

“I—,” he looked up, heart racing. “No, you don’t.”

Lupin regarded him so gently, hands still tucked away, letting Severus make every move. “Yes, I do. It’s not a secret that I do. Can I kiss you, please?”

Severus stared, suddenly dizzy. It felt like every drop of liquor had flooded from his body and he was stone sober, fully aroused, and reeling. He did what he knew worked: held up a finger, asking for a moment to think.

_If I do this, I’ll end up sleeping with him._

“Tell me first,” he looked at the waste basket, now filled with scribbled on paper.

At the bottom were his notes, strangely whiskered, a reminder that somewhere, even in his own mind, Sterger existed with futures only it could fathom. He had to remember the stakes they played with. They could be dead soon. This could be all the time they had left.

“If you had five years left to live, and you knew that, what would you do? With the remaining time?”

Lupin sobered some himself, sat there stricken. “Me, personally? _I_ have five years?”

“I’m asking in general. Answer truthfully.”   
  
He watched him mill it over, forehead wrinkling with concern.

“I…would do what I want?” Lupin looked away, a bitter smile dropping onto his dry lips. “I spend a lot of time scratching out a living, so I try not to think too heavily on what I’ll never do. But I’ve no spouse, no children, no house or land to deed away, so, if I could, I’d do what makes me hap—.”

Severus kissed him. He tried to be patient. He tried his very best.

Lupin kissed back, opening his mouth to let Severus in, and when the potions master pulled back, gasping, “That was a mistake!,” the other man pulled him back in. 

“Have another,” he offered, teasing him by backing just out of reach and dipping in, licking into him when Severus tried to hold onto any thought. Drawing him out of his seat, only to be embraced, Lupin moaned and shocked Severus when he slid away, stealing his chair back. 

He gasped at the hands suddenly on his belt, “What are you _doing_?”

“Is this alright?,” Lupin panted. “I want to suck you off. I don’t usually—and I don’t have to,” he stopped, looking up with stars in his eyes.

“People are usually afraid I’ll bite, for the obvious reasons. So I don’t have to, but I’d _really_ like to.”

“You tell everyone you sleep with that you’re a werewolf?” And to answer Lupin’s question, Severus rushed to unbuckle his belt, the jingling clasp making him hard. 

“I live where werewolves live for the most part. It’s assumed.”

Lupin gripped his thighs and then kissed them with renewed excitement, sliding down his underwear.

“Merlin, your legs are strong! I want them around me as soon as possible.”

“I can do that— _gods!_ ” Lupin hummed around him in that thinking way he did, only this time, the fine vibrations traveled up and down his cock. A hot, wet tongue nestled under his cockhead, and he thrust into a giving throat, which seemed to spur the werewolf on. 

“Fuck, slow down or I won’t last—long,” he buried his hands in wavy, brown hair, gathering it and pulling, feeling it slide between his fingers. The werewolf groaned appreciatively, huffed, breathed hot breath through his nose and sending it washing down Severus’s legs. Then drawing back, Lupin opened wider and swallowed him down.

Severus heard the chair creak, the bottle spill. A years-long tether snapped with astonishing quickness as he slid down the other man’s throat. It stole his breath away. He shuddered and groaned as the deep gold heat flashed in his belly. 

“Ahhh, _ah!_ ”

He came so hard he was lost for words. He loosed his grip from the desk edge, where he’d grabbed to relieve Lupin’s scalp, and laid a sweaty palm on Lupin’s head to ease him off. The werewolf turned and spat into the cloth he kept his marijuana in, and threw it in his office trash, dripping with Severus’s spunk.

The office smelled obscene now. Chocolate, firewhiskey; paper, ink; herb and come. Thank Merlin the portraits were empty.

“In my bed,” Lupin growled, sweeping up and kissing his collar. Severus sagged, thrilled and mashed to a pulp. “I want you in my bed.”

“Yes, yes, that,” he nodded, going where he was led. “Damn you, anything...”

* * *

Remus stepped from the Floo into his empty apartments, lit by the green fire falling into orange and the cool white of the waxing moon out his uncovered window.

Glad to have gone first, glad for the dark although he lit one lamp to shape the velvet night, he figured at least, if Snape never followed, he could be stood up in private. Blue dark and a flush of stars pressed over the stark outline of the forest, and he waited, white-drenched and backlit, when the fire sputtered. 

Snape’s stumbling tall and dizzy, black shirt parted over his lovebitten throat, wobbled out on legs sapped to jelly, knocked loose from all of Remus’s hard work between them. Bright alive and fawn weak, clearly not helped by the spinning Floo travel, Remus could hardly give him a minute to catch his breath.

He already had the other man up against the mantle, untucking worn polyester from his waistband, delighted by the gasp when he swiped along dewy skin.

“Gods, you— _ah!,”_ and the head of dark hair fell back against the woven sack of Floo powder squatting behind him, with Remus panting, “Fantastic!,” into his open mouth. 

The few moments’ delay had been the potions master struggling to look presentable, and all for naught. He undid all of Snape’s hasty rebuttoning. Remus kept none of it: burying a hand into Snape’s hair to feel the damp heat in it and whiff the sultry herb cologne; reeling the shirttails out from his trousers to grope the trembling belly underneath; and skirting higher to tease a nipple with a rough finger.

“Damn you, Lupin, I just—I’m not a machine, you bloody maniac,” Snape whispered against his mouth, frustrated by the chuckle that blew back his hair. “What’s so bloody— _ahh, fuck!”_

Remus couldn’t help tugging at Snape’s barely soft cock through his placket, distracting the man from worming his quick hands into Remus’s pants. They fell away to grab the werewolf’s hips, steadying them both, making him grin rather mercilessly and dip in to nip the man’s ear. 

“Not sure if you can tell, but I’m a bit happy you’re here,” he confessed, draping his arm around Snape’s waist, drawing him in closer.

Lining up their hips, Remus laid his want all along Snape’s, grabbing his arse and grinding into him. Delicious friction made him sigh. 

“Just a bit, you see,” he promised breathlessly.

“Incubus!” Remus grinned, sure his teeth flashed in the moonlight. 

The fire quelled to red embers, and the night took over the shine in Snape’s hooded eyes. Remus pulled back to appreciate his handwork. His stern brewer now twice-melted against his chest, thin hair a tangle, lips kiss-plush, and his always suspicious eyes desperately, angrily needy.

They kissed again, dragged out and filthy, while he pieced the shaking man apart. Remus hummed around that devilish tongue, slotting his thighs between Snape’s and unlacing his bottoms so the wizard’s cock, soft but still heavy with arousal and sticking to his briefs, could massage Remus’s slacks. 

The sucked prick grew valiantly harder, pushing back against his knee. Remus laid more warm, wet kisses on a cursing mouth, a pulsing neck. They leaned, rutting in the living room till they both ran out of breath. Snape wrestled strength into his jellied legs. Remus propped him up, so hard himself it set off an ache that spanned from his stomach to the backs of his knees. 

Eventually, they peeled apart. 

“The bedroom’s to your right,” he instructed gruffly, pressing his lips to Snape’s fluttering eyelids. It seemed the other man had to concentrate to listen properly. He squeezed his eyes shut, fingers wrapped around Remus’s loosened belt, hanging on for dear life. 

Like with the death grip on the desk edge, he rubbed Snape’s knuckles, coaxing their fingers to interlock. Immediately, the Slytherin traced circles on the back of his hands, smoothing over the ridged scars like he might worry a stone. It tingled, the places he touched.

“A second, I—nm. I’m lightheaded.” Snape allowed another languid kiss, and then laid his head on Remus’s shoulder. “You’re trying to kill me.” 

Remus nudged him into the crook of his neck where he went boneless, sighing hotly under his chin. He breathed stuttered, spirited, whisky-laced breaths, and the werewolf swallowed, suddenly more nervous than he’d been all evening. The tingle traveled up his wrists, inside his elbows, over and into his throat. His heart thudded once, a few times, too much for them to just be standing there, holding hands. 

“Hah, scared?” Snape rolled to his full height, mumbling with his voice so deep it echoed.

“What makes you say that?,” he mumbled back, mouth rested on his temple. 

The shushing of shedding clothes and the man slid out of his clinging robe like a snake slithering clean from its skin. Black fabric billowed and pooled at their feet, and Remus felt on the inside of the decade’s greatest magic trick. Folded inside Hogwarts’ premiere dungeon bat: a hungry body, weak to touch.

 _“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,”_ he thought, amused _._

“I can feel your heart beating through your chest,” Snape rumbled. “Don’t think you can,” a deep sigh when Remus bucked, “r-run off.”

“Ahah!” The gall, when the wizard could barely walk! “Well, if you’re up for it, I’d like to see you turn your clever arse about thataways,” pointing to the cracked bedroom door leaking amber candlelight. 

“Let me know if you’d like to be carried—oh, or…”

Remus paused at Snape inviting him into the wrap of his long legs, trousers undone and pulling away from the arch of his back. The werewolf didn’t know if he should blame the drink or the blowjob, or the cocktail of both and the glowing warmth by the fireplace. The night shone into the living room, uncorked the potions master, and poured him into Remus’s arms. 

“You can’t bloody carry me,” Snape finally snorted, like he’d thought on it, untangling their hands. 

“I can, and you’d hate it, which makes the concept very tempting.” In fact, his cock twitched in his drawers imagining Snape’s affronted, harried embarrassment as he flung him over his shoulder.

“But I’ll save my back for a few better things hopefully in the very near future.”

“Excellent excuse to welch when you can’t actually _do it_.”

Remus laughed, “Are you egging me on?”

Snape hunched, taken by a swift cackle, and shrugged, eyes all black glass, wicked, tipsy, and a bit mad.

Strange and set free, Remus eased down onto his knees. Flattered by Snape’s choking gasp at his renewed nearness to his prick, he hugged the man’s thighs. Again, they were unexpectedly strong, making his mouth water. Remus mouthed his bulge through his underwear, pleased by the revering hand dropped onto his hair. He dragged the flat of his tongue, searing, to the clothed head of Snape’s cock, now bullied to weeping again. Snape pushed into his mouth with a throaty groan. 

“Brace yourself on my shoulders,” Remus said lowly, and knowing he would regret this but going a little mad himself, he lifted with his knees.

They cracked, but he felt more than heard it over Snape’s startled shout. 

“ _No!_ Y—put me down!,” Snape sputtered, hands scrabbling on Remus’s shoulders. “This is—Lupin!”

The werewolf hooted, barely feeling Snape’s weight in the rush of making off with him. He carried him like a proud dog did a rabbit. They made steady progress through his apartment, Remus caring not to spin his catch around recklessly but still jostling him, giddy to have him trapped. Snape panted fury and balled his fists in Remus’s shirt, tugging, popping the buttons on his collar, undressing him. 

“This is childish!”

“Mind your head,” Remus smiled impishly, toeing open his door, shirt dragged down to hang at his elbows. 

“Gods, shit!,” Snape swore in return, ducking as told.

The werewolf kept on a dutiful march to his bed, palming the toned thigh bunched against his cheek.

“Good man.” 

He prepared for a hex when burning ozone hazed over him, and his carry tensed. He was so close to Snape now, however, that he smelled the new sweat and pre-cum after kneading the crease of his groin and arse approvingly.

Remus cheered at the pressing wet anointing his now bare shoulder. He drunkenly nuzzled a hip, licking a shivering peek of skin between his shirt and his waistband. 

“Mm, very good,” he purred. “Excellent.”

“St—shut _up,_ ” Snape growled, now fully erect against his cheek. “Don’t—stop saying—!”

“Gods, you’re perfect.”

“Ahh, ah! Dammit!”

 _Merlin, that’s dangerous,_ Remus thought, licking again, tasting salt, loving the contour of gooseflesh and hipbone. He wanted him in his mouth again. 

He was already mid-mistake, so said the twinge in his back, and considering another, he readjusted his grip and beckoned the Slytherin to bend down. Snape had to sit on Remus’s folded arms, and glared down at him tearily, having hardly had a break.

Unapologetic, the werewolf offered a kiss, a prize enough to have the wizard attempt it. They ended up brushing noses. Anything else and they would’ve toppled to the floor. 

He was at least close enough for Remus to whisper, “Whatever you want tonight, I’m giving you, I swear.”

“I want you to put me down,” Snape bit back. 

“Oh, yes?”

He didn’t. Instead, he hoisted him higher and enjoyed the cock poking his cheek.

“Then I suppose I lied. I like you up there too much to let go. Is tonight over?”

“No, idiot—on the bed! Just—!”

“That? Absolutely.”

His bedroom smelled like his shower, still drying, leaving light traces of his shampoo: something liquid and generic he picked up in bulk; damp grout; copper pipes; and a candle he kept to help, wood ash and warm cotton. Nothing like the sunlight at the mill, the flower fields, and rusting metal. Lived in, but lonely from only smelling like him. 

As requested, Remus lowered Snape onto his duvet, straightening slowly to spare his spine. Hoisting a grown man across his quarters, especially right before the full: he’d feel it for days.

 _Suppose I’ll return the favor,_ and he smiled a thing too genial down at the mussed professor. 

“Will you stay put till I get back?,” he prompted. 

His answer was a red-faced scowl, which, with some patient waiting, bred with a jerky nod. The Slytherin even sunk into the mattress, as if hunkering down for a wait. Remus reveled in it. Telling Snape what for and having it done could never get old. 

“Lovely. You’re doing wonderfully, if I’m honest.” 

“Piss off.” 

“Reluctantly, yes. Just a tick.” 

As a gift of brief parting, he decided to goad the snake one last time. Snape had slid his wand from his sleeve to rest between his palm and the comforter. It stayed pointed roughly in Remus’s direction, not quite threatening him—in fact, it seemed to be forgotten for the moment.

So when Remus kneeled on the edge of the bed and pressed his lips to Snape’s grooved brow, wiping aside stray hairs to do it again, it felt perilously close to a showman sticking his head in a crocodile’s mouth: dumb, thrilling, done while only mostly sure of its safety. 

And then Snape apparently recalled why he needed his wand. He gripped it with sure purpose and held it between them, frowning, flushed. Remus refused to flinch. He hovered over the wand tip, eyes half-lidded, eyebrows raised sarcastically. However, a hard drop in his stomach reminded him a full beat before his bloodless brain, that Snape could be—had once been—an accountably dangerous criminal. 

“Now, what do you plan to do with that?,” he asked nonchalantly, leaning in.

 _Maybe I_ am _an idiot,_ he wondered. 

The dark wizard muttered a spell which thankfully did nothing—to Remus. It was Snape who shuddered and spread over his sheets like spilled ink. He moved like water, freezing, then relaxing, washing the room with sweet pine and musk. 

“Oh, no,” Remus panted, crowding closer, breathing in: humid skin; lubricant. “Oh, no, you couldn’t have. Oh, that’s gorgeous. Did you? You didn’t!”

Snape propped up on his elbows, leering down his chest, “Lupin, of course I did. What the hell do you think this is?”

It blew his mind that Snape even knew that kind of magic. It was a basic household cleaning spell modified to prepare for anal sex—a well known trick for dabblers. Remus knew it from his dates about Horizont Alley, at bars down around Feathers and the Crooked Broom. Even then, he’d never seen it make the caster more than wince, much less drip from their bones and leave them halfway fucked.

“Where on earth did you learn that?,” Remus breathed, captivated. 

“Never you mind,” the Slytherin slurred, eyes closed as if savoring. His glare returned to glitter hungrily. “You better hurry through whatever little errand you have, wolf, before I handle myself and you find yourself here alone.”

As if to make good on that, Snape lazily stroked his own thigh, daring as high as the well of his groin. His trousers hung low and framed his bobbing prick.

“Who taught you?,” Remus continued, nostrils flared, body on fire. “Or did you teach yourself? _Christ_ , imagine you playing with yourself, experimenting while locked in your quarters, so primed and ready and nobody to know.”

The other man smirked, delving lower. “Like that, do you?”

“Oh, I bloody love it!”

He forgot what he even needed. Maybe to grab more whiskey for both of them? Maybe to wipe down with a wash rag, fit in a sink wash as a little courtesy? Whatever it was had gone now.

“What’re you feeling?,” Remus urged, subtly mirroring the wandering hand. He squeezed his own cock through his pants leg, and started a slow tug, straddling the man’s knees.

Snape opened his eyes, which had fallen shut again. He watched Remus watch him, and bent and parted his legs, lifting his hips to shimmy out of his bottoms, pants and briefs.

Then he returned to stroking, and ventured further between his thighs to reach under his jutting erection. Then pulling back, the heel of his hand pushed aside his hanging shirt hem. 

Right there, while Remus kneeled over him, his wand still near enough to edge on exciting, Snape took himself in hand. He squeezed his prick, swirled a thumb over the weeping slit, teasing his swollen cockhead. Then he moaned tightly and brought his other hand to his opening, massaging it, as if soothing it. 

Remus hit his limit, swearing. He dove in for a devouring kiss, bumping teeth, biting lips. Snape kissed back, licking into his mouth, puffing, “Yes, yes,” and “Closer! Closer, mn. Touch me!”

He replaced Snape’s hands with his own, thankful for the oil the spell provided, more and more, it seemed, at the wizard’s bidding. His fingers were slick, rubbing at the sensitive pucker, jerking the smaller cock.

The first finger popped in by accident with Snape’s thrusting up into his hand, but hearing the pealing gasp of, “Jesus, _yes!_ ,” he was two fingers in, working in deeper, curling and searching until—

“ _Fuck!”_ Snape arched off the bed, feet planted, burying Remus’s fingers until he practically sat in his palm. “Please! Please!” 

He didn’t even bother with taking off his clothes. Remus shoved down his boxers, and pulled his cock out, yanking hard and shaking, stopped, rocked by the insistent begging. He teetered on the edge of coming untouched, pulling at his balls to stave off orgasm. He dropped it on Snape’s belly, slapped his calf, and pet the naked legs thrown hastily over his lap. 

The werewolf then breathed through his nose, out through his mouth. He needed—he needed to focus. 

“Shirt off,” he snapped. “I want you naked on top of me.”

Snape shot up and threw his last stitch of clothing across the room. Remus pulled him in to sucker another bruise onto his bared chest, annoyed to find a forearm covering it. 

“Move.” 

“It—wait.” 

“Move, Severus.” 

The name stuck like it hadn’t in the empty classroom a week ago. His lover perched on the curve of his cock, trembling. 

The wolf peered up at him, unblinking. A beat, and the flustered Slytherin ripped his arm out of the way. Pleased, Remus licked a hot trail from his pebbled nipples to his slack jaw. Arms came up around his head, including the one so offensively barring his way a second ago.

He turned to punish it and saw the black lines, the snake, the skull, before he realized the whole picture. 

“Mn,” the ex-spy winced. “Don’t look.” 

Remus did, at the Dark Mark, then at his face. He looked exposed. It was more naked than the nudity. 

“I’m not afraid of this on you,” he murmured against wrist. It flexed above the brand while he spoke. “If I was, we wouldn’t be here. Are you still afraid of me, or do you hate me, for what my scars mean?”

“No, obviously, but I chose—!”

“And then you chose differently. It can just be that.”

“Just—,” Severus tried to bargain. Remus didn’t listen.

“What, what are y—,” and he hissed as the werewolf bit the Dark Mark: a little too hard, not enough to break skin, but enough to make them both jolt, sit straighter, rock closer. He grabbed the forearm and bit it again more gently to overwrite the first. Once more, and then he sucked, licked, till his lips buzzed from the Dark magic lying dormant in the skin.

“You’re insane...” They sat, not even kissing, simply poised nose and nose. 

He might’ve been insane, so he didn’t bother answering, floating in a strange state of mind. He could feel so much of his body in that moment, and like the room had expanded, and like the walls had fallen away. He felt brisk air and sky and the flooding business of nature in his wizard-made rooms. 

_The moon above and away from them suddenly hung with her nose pressed against their window, and they rose to her like waves. Odd spirits pulled out of them, and they flew, and the forest watched them tie together mid-air._

_It was a dream he forgot he had where he thought he had been married. Remus couldn’t remember much but the unmatched forever upward._

The heady feeling also came over Severus, Remus realized, as they fell back, the Slytherin eagerly astride his hips. Both helped and held on while Severus sunk down on him inch by agonizing inch. 

“Almost,” encouraged Remus, rubbing him down.

“There can’t be _more_!?”

“Only another inch or two. We can stop?”

“Hah, huh—bullshit. I want all of it.” Remus nodded and tried to wriggle out of his clothes, now finding them restricting. 

“No, you’ll fall out,” Severus grunted, pausing to catch his balance, and then resuming his slide, making Remus’s toes curl. 

“Ughh, but— _yes_ , that’s, _ugh_ —but my clothes—.”

“Leave them on!”

He flipped them and drove in the last inch, glistening with oil, like burying treasure. Pulling out halfway, then stroking in, pulling out all but the tip, and then sinking in to the hilt. They ebbed, crested, and flowed, thrusting into a drumming rhythm, bed springs squeaking, headboard clapping, curtains shaking on their rods.

“Say my name.”

“Heh, ha, ‘Lupin.’ G—ah! Remus!”

Severus hooked his ankles over Remus’s arse, thighs chapped bright red by the scrape of his belt buckle. He rode high and clenched, wound infinitesimally tighter—and then went to cup the wolf’s cheek when the other man’s fringe brushed his bitten wrist.

Something so subtle: Remus felt the tug in his hair, and suddenly, Severus shattered.

It was like he’d taken flight. 

“Beautiful,” Remus shook, “I, _a-ahh_ , _I’m coming!_ ” 

He came hard in his lover still falling apart on his cock. They rocked through their joint climax, falling through the spiral while succumbing to it, struggling for air. Neither lost more than the other to the relentless twist as the orgasm went on and on, peaking higher and higher. Until finally they crashed through the bed it felt, through the bottom of the world, and they couldn’t tell their limbs from one another’s in the dark after the lamp blew out. 

_When they slept, they woke in the meadow, braided together, and without a word, Severus rolled onto his back for Remus to make his feast of him._

_Only after hours, when the sun hit Severus’s dark head thrown back to sigh, and Remus pressed on his breastbone to feel the sweat trickle down it; only when he felt the crying heart break into wild fluttering in that narrow chest; only as he hoped to have somehow slipped beneath that plate of armor into the softness deep inside, deeper than flesh; only as he wondered what kind of curse wanting that could bring on them, did he notice the wolfsbane all around them had turned to wheat._

_Severus took it in, still riding Remus, looking dreamy, healed, or saved._

_“It’s all gold,” he muttered, mystified._

“EMERGENCY: EVERYONE MUST REPORT TO THE GREAT HALL.”

Remus bolted awake fumbling for his wand. Falling out of bed, he spun around, realizing the castle had raised its alarms. He scrambled to get dressed, grabbing the first pair of pants off the floor. Shoving his foot in, he swore, stopped to pull the briefs out of them, and then stopped altogether at the waft of sex and turpentine. 

Right, they weren’t his.

“Snape...Severus, there’s—,” but his bed was empty.

Empty, but still warm, and the potions master had left his clothes, so Remus assumed he must be nearby.

Except his bathroom was still dark, and he dressed, left the bedroom, and found no signs of the other man being anywhere in his quarters. Abandoned clothes strewn about his rooms and—he went cold—Severus’s wand, straight and black, left on the carpet. 

  
  


Sirius had broken into the castle. Severus had disappeared. 

“Staff will take rotating shifts: half will search the castle, and the other half will guard the students here. Prefects are to watch after their House until…”

Remus attended, absorbing nothing. His blood rushed in his ears. His thoughts raced. 

Where could Severus have gone? 

Sterger snatched him. It came back. 

Why wasn’t Remus with him?

This was Remus’s fault. He shouldn’t have antagonized it. Now it had him. What if it could spirit him away? What if it was like the stories, where he’d be gone for a hundred years? What if Remus died before he ever saw him again? 

_Where could Severus have gone?_

Dumbledore paused for breath, giving the other staff time to look around, confounded. 

“Where is Professor Snape?,” Minerva broke in, displeased. Too tellingly, all the present professors looked to Remus.

He frowned, heart in his throat. “Why me?”

Hooch chimed in, “Aren’t you two fucking?” 

Several throats cleared. He felt cold, unbearably cold—freezing. Charity sneezed, next to him in the staff huddle. Sprout bundled up, and Hooch breathed on her hands, puffing white smoke, trying to warm them. Just beyond the doors, leagues of students could be heard complaining and rolling in their sleeping bags. 

“Damn this ungodly chill,” complained Filch from the back of the crowd. Then the surrounding staff parted around Mrs. Norris, who kept from his arms with a spitting hiss. The raggedy cat landed on her toes, hackles raised, and took off yowling into the Great Hall.

“Argus, control her!”

“It’s the cold, ma’am. It ain’t natural!” 

Remus breathed pure white into his hands. The mist swirled around his fingers, and, hearing a clack, he turned toward a rhythmic step, like a hard bottom heel on the stone floor. No one else seemed to notice the long, bony head turning around a far corner. 

The off-white head resembled a Thestral at first, but Remus knew better. He braced for the black body that followed, dripping with tangled hair, glittering hoarfrost. Too small for a horse, wingless and riding the icy fog, it carried toward him in a solitary procession.

As it neared, he saw the curled, dry leaves hanging from its neck in a strange jewelry. The rest of its decorations were the dark, iridescent beetle bodies beading its mane, and the veil of cobwebs over its starlight eyes and spiny tail. 

“Where is he?,” he asked Sterger. 

“Remus.” The wolf ignored Dumbledore’s quiet, warning whisper.

He knew the old man was afraid. He could hear it in the blank he drew and his tucking away into himself. An audible withdrawal, as stopping him meant acknowledging it

“You took him. Where is he?”

 _I tried to stop him,_ it whispered urgently. _The lake…_

Remus ran after the clattering hooves leading him into the night. It could all be a trick, and on the off chance it wasn’t, he sped away, taking the fairy’s path out of the castle, and onto the grounds. 

* * *

_Why are you doing this? This isn’t what you want._

Severus shivered in the cold, black water, sunk in it up to his chest. 

“I d-don’t kn-kno-ow,” His teeth chattered as the lake soaked its way up the wool thrown over his head. White mist covered him and most of his reflection in the lake’s surface, cutting his world down to the dark swath taking him into its numbing embrace.

He wished he remembered sitting up and padding through Hogwarts, through her cut grass, and into the shallows. His sleepwalk only surrendered a few remembered snippets, like snapshots: Remus snoring beside him; the shocking red stuffed in a chest; an awful smell, like spoiled meat; scratching brambles; a fairy ring; and now, the punishing, underwater drop-off, the deadly plummet.

 _I don’t understand,_ Sterger grieved. _Why do you hate belonging? Who could possibly prefer a life alone?_

 _I don’t even remember coming here,_ he replied, too cold to speak. _I’d rather go back to bed._

_Then leave!_

_I can’t move my legs._

Severus looked around himself, but only saw the edges of red wool and the fog. He settled for speaking up to the moon, huge and near, peering in from above. Summoning the last strength he had to curse his poor fate, he sent a prayer instead.

“I’ll l-l-let—ugh. I’ll let y-you c-c-call him,” he said. “Y-you’ve kn-kno-own him l-l-longer…”

The moon shone down, making no promises.

“SEVERUS! Severus, you IDIOT!”

He closed his eyes, relieved. 

The water rippled, then beat on him, pushing and pulling his naked body. It took all of him to stand still and resist falling into the pit. Never before had the lake felt like a hole to the world underneath. He waited out the minutes as the splashing broke ever nearer, as the waves from Remus crashing through to him came stronger, lapping as high up as his neck. 

“Don’t move! Don’t—dammit!” 

Severus wanted to snipe back, “Oh, really? ‘Don’t move,’ is that the plan?,” but he needed his strength to fight the tremors, keep his grip on the slimy lake stones.

The werewolf’s voice started to echo from different spots in the fog. 

“D-don’t—!”

“W-wait—!” 

_Let me walk you back to him, please,_ the demon whispered. He met his own eyes in the distorted dark mirror rising up around him, drinking him in, and tried to, but didn’t, understand how to help.

 _I’m not trying to stop you,_ he answered, just as the waves stopped. 

At long last, Remus remembered his wand. Severus’s feet left the lake floor and he was pulled backwards through the water, only a short ways but to a disparate world. From the edge of dying to life. 

He flew into another shaking body with sodden underclothes worn under cast-off robes, the parting white mist around them, the moon larger than ever, and Remus’s loafers bobbing in the water over his shivering shoulder—it all seeing him grasped and anchored, clung to desperately. 

“H-hold on,” said Remus. Severus wasn’t sure if his feeble wrap made any difference, but hold on he did. 

“T-t-try, tr-tryi-ing.”

“Y-yes, I’ve g-got you,” and Remus squeezed him around his waist, muttered, and hugged tight as they glided back to the shallows.

Soon they had their feet under them again, and while Severus was mostly dragged, they climbed onto shore. The wizard dressed in only a soaking wet scarf fell, shaking to pieces in the close of the werewolf’s arms. Remus worked quickly, warming them both, transfiguring through chattering teeth and stretching the scarf into a knit cloak with a few, quick spells. He dove into winding all of it around them, summoning his own robe and crawling into that. 

He dried the wool three times over until static itched over Severus’s painfully rekindled nerves. Then he dug into the thick vermillion hood, cursing at the freezing wet hair, and dried that as well. 

_Rough hands, softer for a few months of better living and a night sluiced with oil…soap and chocolate and lake water and fishy mud...crisp, clear water that had nearly had him, nearly drowned him in the dead of night...his face, cradled…_

“Why would you _do that_ ,” Remus gasped, pulling him up into a kiss still raw with beating fear.

Severus held on, feeling prickling back into his limbs, and regaining his strength, lined his own frightened, teeth-knocking press of lips right after Remus’s.   
  


“I couldn’t—I couldn’t tell you,” he tried, stealing a breath and diving back in for another kiss. Three, four more times, anything to bury him in living, present, safe. “I don’t know what happened.”

 _Last time this happened, I wanted to die_ , he couldn’t say, not while being gathered into the man he—not now. _I thought I’d never have this, and once I got it...why?_

“You could’ve _died_. After everything!”

“I know, I was there.” 

“This isn’t funny,” the wolf groaned, as if in physical pain, and then the tears came, to his eyes and Severus’s. They curled together, two adults, as scared as children. “Anything you need, I’ll give you, just ask. And you _stay_ by me.”

“Okay,” Severus hitched. 

“I mean it! Don’t disappear like that.”

“I know, okay. I’m here. I didn’t—I never meant to.”

Remus tried to grab his hands, but they were knotted in the unraveling yarn. Severus pushed his fingers through the weave, tangling their hands in the red wool, forcefully calm, muttering, “Calm down now. We’re both here. We’re both staying.”

A finger of thick fog passed between them, briefly obscuring Remus’s distraught expression.

“How did you find me?,” Severus wondered aloud, waving at the screen of white all around them. It was still so thick as to cloak the woods and vanish the castle lights. “The fog—.”

Remus pushed back his hood to pepper his forehead, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose with breathy pecks edged with swears. 

“Merlin, you’re mad,” Remus hissed louder, but to himself, touching their foreheads, shivering though not from cold. He tugged at the hood.

“Bright, fucking red—if I hadn’t seen it—! If Sterger hadn’t said the lake—.”

 _Sterger_ , he remembered, aghast to have forgotten it.

“Where is it?!” 

“It kept running into the forest.”

Severus struggled to sit up, pushing out of Remus’s gathering arms. Seeing his aim, the grip tightened around his middle and braced him, helping him to stand. He scanned the grounds frantically, but even with the bright moonlight, couldn’t see much through the lingering fog. He stumbled away from the lake in the direction of the Forbidden Forest, the depth of which he felt in his gut, like the lake’s hollow, daring him in.

“Don’t! Look, something’s coming out.” Remus pointed.

Barely there but growing through the dissipating mists, a pillar of red bled out of the wall of black trees. 

“What is that?”

“I’m not sure,” said resolutely, like the wolf swore harm to whatever came for them shrouded in mystery. “Sterger changed forms when it led me to you—like instead of a man it was an animal, like a deer.” 

_A doe,_ the stunning red agreed. 

It spoke directly into his thoughts—their thoughts, assuming from Remus shifting his weight—but the last of the low, glowing clouds blew away regardless, like it speaking had dismissed them. Their view widened to accept the expansive hills, jagged trees, night sky swirling with stars, and hulking castle, as if to say it all belonged to them. Severus basked in it, as tall as the spirit at a few dozen paces, no longer made small to witness it, the possibility it promised, and the powerful wide, if he kept his distance.

He approached cautiously and thinking twice, tugged Remus closer to his side.

“You wanted to help me, but you couldn’t,” the red-cloaked wizard asked the creature, “Why?”

Its vibrating voice carried clear across the hushed campus. 

“It seems as though, while I grew stronger, so did you. Once I came to see our...connection for what it was, I lost all power over you.”

“It’s you,” Remus told him, standing arm-in-arm. “The spirit we were talking about, the fairy. I didn’t know if you’d figured it out and chose not to say. Whenever you died way in the future, you became that.

“Maybe once it knew, it stopped throwing you around, lest it interfere too heavily with itself.”

”Yes,” it hummed, “our Remus has done a great turn in convincing us both of the truth. I owe him my thanks.”

It turned to Remus and stared acrid night, suggesting its thanks weren’t necessarily to one’s benefit. The werewolf, of course, cleared his throat and nodded back.

Severus spent a few moments looking over the mossy skull mask, taking it in. Sterger waited, still wreathed in its ground length hair, although now the inky fall looked brushed and woven into a net of delicate plaits with shiny carapaces. The doe skull’s teeth smiled around skin, rotten grey on sunken cheeks around lips blue with cold. Sterger’s crown of claws still jutted upright, sallow and green as ever, only now they were set off by the red of the cloak, about as rough as Severus’s own, and a veil of shimmery spider silk webbing the spindly hands. And now on each moss-ridden finger spun a copper ring, washed out in the moonlight, probably brighter in the day. 

“I still die,” he accepted sorely. 

“All living things die,” it replied. “Even machines, even wizards who think themselves immortal, even arrogance, even undying little boys. Death comes to all, and for you, perhaps later than last expected.”

It rippled with power. “Perhaps _far_ later, my friend, after a long and loving life.”

“But when I do go, I turn into you—horrid and alone.”

“Horrid? I am _beautiful.”_ It raised its forever arms skyward.

The night bugs cried and the autumn wind rambled over the birch and ancient pines, scrambling the red leaves and raining them down while the evergreen swayed like the dreamy field of wheat. Sterger’s long hair blew up and danced around it, not unlike the aconite blooms. It probably reeked of as bitter a poison, but all Severus could smell was early frost on the grounds. 

“Huh,” he realized. “And not alone either.”

“What? What else is here?,” Remus startled, exhausted but ready to fight. 

“Of course you wouldn’t notice,” Severus harrumphed, watching the woods sing for the horrid fairy. He wouldn’t tell him, either. If the other man was so clever, he could figure it out himself. 

A path of wild grasses sprung up around Sterger’s bare feet, trailing back into the wilderness. Where the path crossed over the tree line, the grey tree trunks bowed, forming an archway at the end of which one could faintly feel a growling in the crushing black, a sound so low and deep, a rumble like what preceded the boom and crash of thunder—a growl so hungry, it hummed in his veins. 

Elated, the spirit turned, pulling off its mask as it went. It dropped the skull in the grass, leaving the doe behind for anything to take. A slip of moonlit shined just so on the bridge of a prominent nose when it looked up, skin peeled back to reveal just the grisly bone. No longer the deer, Sterger flew into the forest to meet again with the wild. 

Severus wondered then, looking down at himself, cold and scratch-free, if the snatch of memory he had from nicking brambles and the ring of mushrooms was his or the fairy’s. He couldn’t remember when he last stepped foot in the Forbidden Forest. In either case, the world shuddered, and Sterger left, passing through its portal to the other side, leaving the grounds to return to its night noises. 

“Hm,” said Severus, covering himself more in the cloak. 

“I’d say at least that,” Remus sighed and started shepherding him into the castle. 

He wanted to stay a moment longer, but knew whatever magic held them in the fog was fading. He could very well be spotted bare-arsed in communion with school grounds, with his tackle aimed just left of Hagrid’s hut. 

“A lot to look forward to after you pass on. Better than a castle ghost or a portrait,” the werewolf offered. 

“Is it?” Remus snorted at Severus’s skepticism. 

“Most people don’t get a procession and new powers when they die. I’ll be lucky to get a grave.”

Severus side eyed him. “You think that you’re ‘most people’?” 

“What does _that_ mean?”

“Nothing.” He sniffed imperiously, pointing out the ache in his cold-cut ankles. “My feet are ice. Get me back inside before I lose a toe.”

Remus chuffed, “Yes, your Highness.” 

They made it mostly over the hills and just reached a side entrance into Hogwarts, when Severus felt Remus jerk and followed his gaze out to the Whomping Willow. A dark shape—some mangy dog—waited for an orange cat to pass through, one that resembled Granger’s squashed monstrosity. It seemed to lead the way. The beastly buddies conspired to dodge branches, freezing the willow in a way Severus knew of from only the one source, and darting inside. He watched the other man watch them go.

When Remus turned and averted his eyes, Severus sidled close as if to whisper something, caught his eye, and skimmed his guilty thoughts. He withdrew, curling a lip.

“Sirius Black’s an Animagus? And he’s already been in the castle?” 

Remus glowered and yanked open the side door, throwing his glare to the black passage just inside.

“We need to talk about that becoming your bad habit,” he groused, tense. He seemed suddenly nervous, on top of being tired, on top of recovering from shock and panic. 

“Name any good habit of mine, and I might agree.”

“I’m being serious—don’t! If you make that joke, I’ll vomit. Stop reading my thoughts without my permission. I’m sure you hate it being done to you.”

“Hmph.” Severus walked ahead, and then wobbled, unsteady on his feet. They really were sore from scrabbling over lake rocks and battling the elements. Despite being upset, Remus steadied him, inspiring a bit of good will in him, if only a touch. 

“I’ll wait for your _permission_ then. And Black, he’s _your_ burden,” he assigned gravely. Remus froze and searched his face. Severus sighed in miserable charity.

“I mean that I’ll take your lead. Sterger told me Black was innocent among a dozen other things, and if I’ve believed it this far, I suppose I’ll have to keep the trend. So, if you wish to... _help_ him somehow,” he hoped he didn’t regret this, “I know nothing, and I’ve seen nothing. 

“But if he’s guilty—.”

“Yes, of course,” the werewolf breathed, shoulders sagging in some emotion a shade too scared to be relief.

 _Strange, the things that frighten him_ , Severus thought.

The door closed behind them, shutting out the moonlight. They shared the dark for a moment. Severus bit his tongue when he was held and lifted a hand to bat Remus away, only to bump against a wet cheek. 

“Thank you.”

Severus grunted. “We’ll see.”

  
  
The sweep for Sirius Black ended at around three in the morning, giving Severus time to return to Remus’s room, shower, and dress again. Spelling dust bunnies and wrinkles from his clothes, he switched places with Remus, letting him wash the outside off and return, combed and worn out. 

The potions master suggested they return to the Great Hall a quarter hour apart to avoid suspicion. The Defense professor shook his head, cringing at the immediate alarm this brought on.

“We’ve not exactly been discreet about having it out in public,” said Remus.

Severus was speechless. 

With some coaxing, they arrived in time—and noticeably together, if keeping a respectable distance. They pretended to have finished the search with nothing to report, before Remus begged off claiming not to feel well, and Severus, without bothering with excuses, nodded his goodnight and left with him. 

He ignored any pensive, blue-eyed stares, jockish guffaws, or scandalized, “Now, really!” soon closed behind the double doors. They wordlessly agreed to spend the night as they had intended, wound together in Remus’s bed until morning. 

Monday dawned. It peaked and sunk into afternoon with the two men fully unconscious, asleep dead enough to lay their dreams to rest. Severus woke first to his hand on his lover’s bare chest, feeling it rise and fall. Then he considered the daylight slipping under the door jamb, realizing it felt far too old for early morning. 

“Lupin, wake up!” 

“Wha—!” The werewolf blinked muzzily, bolting upright, digging in the sheets for his wand. Severus was already out of the bedroom, throwing robes over his sleep shirt, looking to start the fireplace. “What’s it?!”

“Classes! Up!” Remus stayed in bed, coming around slow as slugs.

“Wha’s that?,” he slurred, pointing at Severus reaching into the bag of Floo powder. 

The wizard snatched his hand back to look at it and caught the metallic shine that the other man must’ve meant. Late afternoon sun gleamed along his left hand: a ring, a flat, copper coil, spun around his ring finger. He squinted at Remus, who raised his own hand, toting an identical copper ring. 

“What the hell is—we don’t have time!,” he spat, snatching a slump of patched, brown tweed and hurling it into the bedroom.

“Get dressed! We’ve slept through the whole damn day!” 

“Then why rush?,” Remus complained, worming back into bed. Severus glared at him, and after a second, reality set in: “Shit!”

“Yes, it’s called ‘employment.’ Clothes on—look as downtrodden as possible! I want you feeling on death’s door—no, _sicker than that._ It’s near enough the full. We’ll say that—!” 

The Floo roared green before Severus could throw in his trickling handful of powder. The Headmaster’s voice spilled through it, without the rest of him to follow. 

“Afternoon, gentleman,” he greeted the pair sunnily. “Severus, I believe you’re here as well?”

He coughed. Dumbledore answered, “Wonderful! You have both my congratulations.

“Your classes are excused for today, given that Remus has been feeling unwell. If I recall correctly, it is the time for it, and so rest assured, any time you need to tend to him, you’re allowed. Needless to say, the arrangement goes both ways.”

Remus murmured a, “Ah, uh, thank you?,” shuffling to the Floo, buttoning his pants. “Wh—?”

“Please look to your right to see the castle’s accommodations. Severus, it should be a green door by the front exit. Tell me if you see it.” 

A door presented itself as described—green painted wood with a petal latch and an old brass handle—something he missed in the rush to get ready. They hadn’t entered through it. Merlin—and apparently Dumbledore—knew where it led. 

“Yes, it’s...a door,” he informed the Headmaster uneasily. 

“Excellent! That should attach your quarters. Of course, it locks on either side. Our other couples on staff report no issues maneuvering through it, as it reshapes according to the form and size of the entrants. 

“We’ll schedule an appointment with Minerva to discuss the change to benefits and coverages—.”

“Ah, see, this is, haha,” Remus waved the fireplace to slow down, while Severus rushed to investigate the door. “Er, alright, so. This is a lot of presumption. I know we’ve been a bit out about all this, but—.”

“If you’d like, we can see about detaching the rooms.” 

“But why would you attach them in the first place?”

The potions master ripped the door open to see his apartments from his own doorway. Shredded books were swept to one side and left for the drudgery of re-assemblage. His spartan furniture attended, all inexplicably covered in foliage and moss despite him living in it, underground, away from any rain or sunlight just the other night. And his repaired bedroom sighed herb smell, his fairy-repelling tea left to steep for almost two days now. 

He looked at his ring and the matching one on Remus’s hand. He watching him bicker ever more panicked, throwing his hands up at Dumbledore’s confused replies. Through the bald window, he saw the woods and the birds flapping lazily over it. 

_Ah,_ he thought, _a fairy_ _wedding._

 _A sacred space._ Did the circle of fog count? Could anything brought on by a horror be other than profane? But in any pagan rite, nature was sacred. Could that…?

 _An officiant._ Sterger wasn’t physically present. Did that matter, if he was there in spirit? When everywhere Severus was, it was, in some interpretation? That crown on its head might be more than for show, and if the ages bestowed it with some dominion...

 _Vows. “We’re both staying.”_ No, no, they were afraid. Those couldn’t... 

_A handfasting._ The tangled yarn? That couldn’t have…

_Rings. Vows. An officiant._

“Quiet ceremonies aren’t uncommon,” the Headmaster assured them. “Far from it, in fact, we’ve a handful of staff that were privately wed at some or other point. Divorced, as well. Hogwarts merely adjusts to the married couple on an as-needed basis.”

“M—!” Remus crouched, no doubt to shove his head into the Floo. Severus couldn’t blame him, as it was something begging a face-to-face conversation. 

The Dark wizard left the wedding door cracked, drifted past the fireplace and the chaos there, heading into the bedroom: “‘Lost power over me.’ It _lied_. That devil _tricked_ us.”

“Snape, are we married?!,” cried Lupin.

“Shut up! Don’t say anything!” Severus plugged his ears. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. I am going—back!—to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)


	8. Onward To Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To love and be loved is to thaw.

He had time to realize the inherent danger of happiness. So, he dreaded Remus’s return and did that time due service.

With tailbone aching and a twinge in his hips that he could almost hate for how it reminded him of hours spent too pleasantly, Severus lay in another man’s bed and considered his left hand. Copper still ringing the finger below which his palm trembled, and where lower even than that throbbed and tingled his bitten Mark, his other side sunk into his pile of gathered clothes.

There, to his ceaseless wonder and anxiety, he stayed. He watched his fingers twitch every minute or so with the stiff muscles reminding themselves of blood, and he breathed.

That was all for a few minutes. Staring in terror, and long, slow breaths. 

Remus went to interrogate Dumbledore and ask after all the details of their strange new arrangement. That was a couple of hours ago now, and in that time, Severus found himself waiting for him, and then waiting to burn for solitude, waiting to leave, waiting to _want_ to leave. Waiting for the ache in his back to be more than titillating and largely comfortable. Waiting to hate something about where he’d found himself or how he’d gotten there.

Instead, Severus took a turn about Remus’s bedroom, telling his worn clothes from the werewolf’s only barely in the easy sunshine. The bit of sun which hadn’t set by then spilled around the cracked bedroom door, striping the rumpled sheets smelling of cheap soap and old sweat, some cologne, and the warm cotton candles.

His and another man’s things looked at rest together: dusty black and patched brown, and red cloak covering the carpet.

He meant to change, hoping it would spur him toward the green door home, and stopped when pinching the slippery nightshirt snug on his belly and chest. It was washed of color and see-through in a stretch along both sleeves, likely where years of rough sheets and hard mattresses had worn away the weave.

Given how old it was, of course Severus assumed it was his, since he couldn’t remember the last time he bought new clothes. However, as he pulled it over his nose and mouth, he held his breath like he’d done since he was a boy, waiting to resurface.

Then he choked, realized a patch of the shirt shone through vaguely pink in the quiet light—red, even. He never bought red on principle. He was a small enough man to keep to that. 

When he gasped, angry, the shirt smelled like Remus. Confounded, Severus recalled the night before, the two of them propping the other up as they wobbled to the four poster, tumbled into it, and slid down to the very edge of sleep.

 _“Mm, undress for bed,”_ _the wolf said, nudging him awake. Severus groaned and ignored him. “No, no outside clothes. Lord knows what we’ve rolled in—no, don’t sleep! Come now.”_

Severus fell back onto his pile of clothes, staring at the ring like this was its fault. He’d been bullied to curl against the wolf last night and tucked in like a fool, molded against a powerfully warm side after dressing down, looped under a heavy arm, shored against sick ribs and mumbled at till sleep came. They traded sleepy insults. He dozed, listening until his own heartbeat disappeared into the rhythm filling the dark. 

Content.

“Bastard demon,” he breathed, balling his fist. The wedding ring pressed back against his other fingers. The metal was now warm with him worrying at it and was so much, he could cry. 

He heard the front door to the quarters click shut and soft, shuffling footsteps. Sitting up, swiping at his eyes, he answered the winded, “Severus?,” with a cough. 

After a few moments, the bedroom door creaked open, revealing a harried Remus, awash with setting sun. He held a burlap sack in one hand—the hand with the matching ring flashing rosy as pinched cheeks.

The bag had a heavy swing, which stirred the air as Remus beelined to the bathroom and threw the bag at the bed where it sailed in a perfect arc to Severus’s side, stinking of game. 

Heaving a gusty sigh, Remus turned on the sink and started splashing his face with cold water. His ring shone brightly even in the off-color washroom lights. Severus tore his eyes off of it to stare at his own fists on his knees, wed-handed, grunting, “Back?,” for lack of anything else to say. 

“Uh, yes, sorry it took a bit, but that was—Christ,” Remus sniffled, still scrubbing his face. “Well! Dumbledore can’t tell us more than we already know, given _we_ were out there last night and he wasn’t. We’re just _married_ now...hn. So says the castle.”

“Hm.”

“Of course the Ministry recognizes pagan weddings. Same-sex doesn’t matter.”

“Mhm.”

“We can request a copy of the marriage license by mail or go in person, whichever works for you. I imagine mail, if we’re finally back to getting post—but this is mad. Absolutely mad. I can’t—who could!”

The wolf shut off the water and felt around the sink with eyes squeezed shut. Severus didn’t speak and watched his clumsy groping, terrified.

Without fairy magic, his blood didn’t hum with the werewolf’s nearness. There was enough space in his body to feel it wind tighter, to stew in how much he missed his thick robes and regretted not leaving when he could. It’d be too obvious to cover up now and look prudish, especially as Remus dried his face in a washcloth and squinted at him through spiked lashes.

The wizard sat pin straight while Remus studied him nested in his bed. Droopy eyes blinked away wet, and Remus frowned. 

_Sterger went too far. This man can’t want this,_ Severus thought, throat tight. He glanced at the green door across the living room. _I can hang about and be kicked out, or I can leave now like I’ve got some sense._

_Damn him._

“What’s wrong? You look—what’s going on?”

The mattress dipped and Severus relinquished his attention back to his hus—the wolf, wincing as Remus kneeled on the bed and leaned over him. A rough hand came to rest on his cheek, ring forgotten by its wearer but not by Severus, not for a second as it pressed into his skin. 

He tensed, too frozen to even recoil. He didn’t blink. He hardly breathed. He simply held tough until, bested by the stress, he yielded to Remus’s worried touch, taking the second hand curling into his hair and the hover closer with a shuddering sigh.

“Okay, okay,” Remus murmured, laying his lips along Severus’s nose. His face whiffed of hand soap and his breath stank of black tea and pungent weed. “You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s happening.”

 _What if you loved me?_ He cringed, but Remus still waited for him to answer, and he sagged, grateful to be alone in his own head again. 

“You stink. You’ve obviously been smoking,” Severus settled, hoping to buy another second and use it to inch ever so subtly back from breaking. 

How would he return to spying, or look Albus in the eye, knowing his mind had been lived in so thoroughly that it hurt? It felt open, oversensitive, and too bright for secrets. Everything he thought with Remus looking at him felt plain as the red in his face.

“You rearrange the bones in _your_ body once a month and see if I bring you up on it,” but the wolf dropped his halfhearted attempt at a joke. “Severus, please, are you alright? You’re shaking, and I—just, come.”

Accepting being consoled was embarrassing agony, but he couldn’t deny the relief of the other man bearing even closer, practically crawling into Severus’s lap to hold him, kicking the sack he brought to the foot of the bed. Severus’s arms felt wooden but fell victim to the bend he pushed onto them, to wrap them around Remus and be held.

The tears were already rolling down his cheeks to be soaked up in the werewolf’s collar. Severus hid his face in his greys, so humiliated he wished he’d disappear. 

“It’s never—,” was all he could manage, muffled by the robes. 

“Yes? Alright?” 

Remus obviously didn’t understand, but carried on stroking his back until it became unbearable. Severus broke away to storm the bathroom and have his turn at washing his flushing face. The wolf’s words were garbled by splashing water, drowned out by the rushing tap. Of course, that meant he only spoke louder while Severus blew his nose, disgusted to be sniveling. 

“Talk, please,” Remus urged, grimacing, half-obscured by terry cloth as he struggled to his feet again. “Is it marriage? I know, if you could, you wouldn’t choose a werewolf—.”

“Shut up.” 

“Honestly, nobody would bl—.” Severus shot him his blackest glare, or at least tried through swelling, red eyelids, hot from harsh rubbing.

“I said leave it! _I’m_ the bilious spleen damned to human life. I’m the ulcer, and you’re _you_ , so just shut up and let me feel sorry for myself for one, bloody minute!” 

He threw down the rag he used to clean his nose and, remembering this wasn’t his bathroom, left it dangling from the sink edge. What did filth matter now?

“You’ll be the one begging for an unshackling soon enough, anyhow,” he finished, looking away when Remus huffed in surprise. “Think that’s funny? Well, I’m glad _you’ve_ come to terms with this.”

“Clearly I haven’t. You’ve had to go and figure it all out for both of us.” Severus looked to the mirror, avoiding his own eye out of habit. 

He didn’t see so much as sense Remus creeping close again, felt the frown kiss under his ear and the arms slide around his waist. He couldn’t avoid being held unless he asked, it seemed, and even then only maybe. The wolf could be quite all-consuming when he wanted to. 

“I’ll just drag my sad carcass down to the dungeons and let you get on with your life,” Severus said instead of demanding he be let go. 

It became obvious he didn’t want that, as Remus buried his nose in the crook of his shoulder and wormed his hands down to his belly, and Severus gave over his weight in response, lending his hand to be folded into Remus’s cracked grasp. 

Again, hand soap and tree, afternoon tea and chocolate; game and animal musk, like he’d been out hunting or by the woods. He had a sharpness a bit like Severus’s potions. He spoke drily into his own shirt on Severus’s shoulders.

“We can’t both be the bad choice,” he explained. “We’re still here. I’ll choose here over anywhere else.”

Severus said nothing in reply. He let the other man go on and shivered when rough fingers stroked his Mark. 

“When you go on to bigger and better things long after I’m dead in the dirt, I chose here, with you. You needn’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried,” he lied. Remus chuckled.

“Where could I rather be?”

Their rings aligned and could be dealt with later, it also seemed. The two men made their business swaying in the little bathroom to no music. Remus shed to the hasty dressing underneath, snorting at his uneven buttons in the mirror, a couple missing entirely, showing his wrinkled undershirt and silver scars across his chest. 

“You’re heavy,” Severus complained after a while.

“Deal with it for now. You’re rather tall, I’ll have you know, and my back is killing me.”

“What’re you on about?” He tried to look over his shoulder and bumped right into a pained grin. 

“No, stay there. I’m clinging for dear life.”

“Move!”

“If we move, I’ll fall over. Dead tired. Can’t feel my legs.”

Severus felt the laugh bubbling up his throat. If anything, it tolled a years-long evil disappearing and other things surging forth. A snort escaped before he choked it back down, and when asked, blamed it on gas. 

“You say that knowing I can’t let go,” Remus smiled, eyes and teeth huge from a scant and lovely inch away. “You’re foul.”

“Tough.”

* * *

 _He didn’t run,_ Remus realized. The peevish cough when he called the Slytherin’s name meant everything.

Never in his life did he think himself one to ask another to stay, not for him. Stay away or out of trouble—those things he could ask for, sometimes even beg for. But he never wanted another person to be with him indefinitely, hardly before the war and never since. 

The Marauders had been his one exception. He learned while his parents loved him but kept too fragile to hold him close that few came by like those three. Why would someone else keep themselves down simply to stay by him? 

His dead friends liked the danger and intrigue, and underneath that was genuine fun. However, most people had to crouch down to where his tiny basement window peeked out at the feet of other people. He would sink so low some days, it felt like anyone who cared had to shout it down through a sliver where indomitable concrete met dirt, where them crowding in blocked the meager trickle of light and left him nodding to their jokes in the dark.

It had to be a type of fate that a man could live lower than him and like it. 

_Maybe not ‘like,’_ he thought as he let Severus help him back into bed. 

He arched, cursing at the pain ripping up his spine when he bent to sit. He knew he’d hurt it toting the potions master about his rooms like a proud dog did a stick. He hadn’t expected the nearness of the November full to set him back so badly. If the changes this cycle were more brutal than the last, Remus might miss more class. 

He turned to his dungeon dweller and made to say as much.

“Why do you smell like animal?,” Severus asked, interrupting him with a sharp sniff.

“I—Is that a werewolf joke? I’m infirm, Severus.”

“You’re annoying, more actually.” At that, he was left to arrange himself on his pillows while the other man strode from the room. 

The green, wedding door—Ah, he’d forgotten about it—was flung open and marched through with hunched back and spirited elbows. He grew to see how every of Severus’s moves were tight and done with purpose. 

Trying to alleviate the pressure on his seat, hoping to save his back another spasm, he reclined almost luxuriously across unwashed clothes and sheets.

Cheek propped on the heel of his hand, Remus took in the contours and pale shapes carved out of Severus’s dungeon dark. His long body waded through shadows, the only thing moving against the backdrop of—Remus squinted and puzzled away at _—moss_ , bright and black lichen and other scraggly ends reaching out to touch the afternoon.

_Does he live in a terrarium?_

An odd change from the dead things he kept to scare children. The near pitch dark couldn’t help them grow but so much, going by what Remus knew of plants. Although, he could imagine Severus griping about his day to fuzzy rocks better than people. He probably held them in higher regard. If asked, the wizard might recite their properties by touch alone—no, by taste, blindfolded.

Of all things to see last: tan and off-white mushrooms laddered Severus’s side of the door, soaking in the peach light. The potions master re-emerged, somewhat in distress managing an armload of stout, glass jars. He appeared to notice the mushrooms in the same way as Remus. 

He bent close to examine them down the length of his nose, eyebrow quirked.

“Why the hell are these—mushrooms?” He tilted his head in a corvid fashion, expression keen, as if cataloging them on sight. “Hm.”

Remus blinked, surprised and a tad enchanted. Not for the first time, and hopefully never the last, he found himself once again seeing Severus in his element. A more natural state now, surrounded by stubby greenery, dismissing the funny door to carry forward on a heavy waft of herb. 

He recognized the stringent punch of soothing salve, stronger with so many jars: “For me?”

Severus curled a lip, dumping his gift on the bed. One jar bounced off of the burlap sack he’d brought back from Hagrid’s, the glass corner clunking off the gruesome thing inside. Another dark eyebrow joined the first. Before Remus could explain, the Slytherin had his freshly emptied hands busy untying the bag.

“Before y—,” Remus started, but Severus already had the beast out by the ears. A large, dulling brown hare hung limply from his fist. 

With a deep chuckle, he asked, “And this is for me, I take it?”

Hefting it higher, he looked the poor thing in its vacant, hazel eyes and didn’t bother to suppress his crooked grin. 

“Look, Lupin, it’s our first wedding present.” Cradling its bottom and presenting it like a prize vase, he drawled, “Stunning. Shall I place it on the mantel?”

“I didn’t know where else to bring it,” defended the wolf, trying to sit up with minimal success. He worked against his own guffaw when Severus proved so predictably unbothered by the dead hare, that he threw it over his forearm and offered Remus a hand. 

“Is it worth knowing why the Headmaster gifted you a dead animal? I’m assuming this is why you reek of game.”

“You’re having too much fun waving that thing around. Put it,” he gestured at the sack, “It’s like wrangling students—put it away! 

“I ran into Hagrid on the way back. He’d gone to Dumbledore about a monster spooking his animals, and since I’ve hardly earned my keep today, I volunteered my services.”

Severus cooperated as far as pushing half of the hare back into its burlap. The head still flopped over the bedspread for him to examine lazily while he snarked.

“So, you came to the rescue and defeated this mind-shattering horror,” said while stained nails pinched the tufted ears. 

Remus could only shrug. His back hurt, and the smoking he did to cope was enough to round the cutting edge of his memory. He couldn’t quite grasp the hippogriff stomping and grunting, black eyes bugging out of its head while roosters and ferrets ran in circles around its feet.

He had thought that, upon entering the Forbidden Forest, to where the animals all faced and hollered, he might see Sterger returned; some deadly Dark creature licking its chops like a fox sighting the hens; even a werewolf like himself, one he figured lived in the forest to dodge the registry near the change.

But no, only a brown hare. It sat upright, twitching its whiskers and perking up when Remus broke through the trees and spotted it. Then it walked up to him with no real hurry, looked him in the eye, and died. 

He’d spent a minute with it in the shade, watching the hare lay its head between his scuffed loafers and take its last breath. A strange satisfaction came over him for a moment, like he’d been hungry and given a meal. He had to step away from Moony to pick the “monster” off the path. 

When Hagrid tried to feed it to Buckbeak, the beast reeled back, shrieking, and nearly took off the keeper’s arm. Afterward, when helping him wrap his wounds, Remus remembered looking out into the forest and feeling it look back. 

“It felt wrong to leave it behind,” he hedged. 

The potions master rolled his eyes, quipping, “Yes, we mustn’t insult th—,” before a gurgle rose over the rest. It happened again before Remus caught on, closing his eyes to savor a heretofore unknown and profane justice. 

Severus dropped the hare’s tuft and threw his chin in the air, as insolent as a man could be when a dead animal had made his stomach growl.

“Peckish?,” Remus poked. He didn’t need Hogwarts’ staff attending to feel vindicated. He let the pointed silence applaud him and suggested they order lunch. 

  
  
  
  
  
Sandwiches from the kitchen, packaged biscuits and tea. Remus ate more than Severus. Severus drank most of the pot. They kept the serving tray on the bed until they were finished, and then placed it on the ground to be kicked over later. Then, with the sun almost down and the lamps turned on to hiss softly, glowing brassy and smooth, Severus looked to him and commanded, “Now, strip.”

“I, w—I suppose I could,” stammered Remus, caught off guard. He didn’t deny the nimble fingers making short work of his crumby dress shirt. “It’s a bit sudden, but—.”

“The salve,” the other man smirked, enjoying Remus’s trip to disappointment. “I need your back.”

“That’s only half as exciting, but if I _must_ be pampered.” He shimmied out of his shirts with some quick assistance and rolled over onto his front. The room was comfortable from them being in it most of the day, so he only felt a bit exposed with his bare back out for Severus’s perusal. 

He couldn’t help shrinking into the sheets when a firm fingertip traced the keloid crescents curving high around his sides. He hadn't expected to be touched there so thoroughly, but maybe he should’ve been. Dry fingers investigated every bump and dimple, until Remus gasped, “Enough!”

The hand snatched away, shocked, like its owner had lost himself in his caressing. “Do they hurt?”

“No.” A thinking quiet followed.

“Is this where you were—,” and Remus rasped, “Yes,” more than a little embarrassed. 

As unaffected as he was about the rest of his scars, he’d caused those himself, or at least Moony had. So, he could afford some glibness about them on the day-to-day. He couldn’t harp on them forever and keep any sort of decent mood, not with them racing over his every observable inch—face, hands.

But Greyback’s bites were...tears, from an erroneously human mouth. Those he didn’t want touched. 

Severus stayed straddling his thighs, working in silence, leaving Remus to hear the scrape and pop of jars being pried open. The potent soothing salve breathed over both of them while they shared the pause. Jars were placed on either side of him and left there to wait. Remus realized the whole affair waited for his direction.

“Ah, I’m fine with everything else, just not those,” he instructed. 

Immediately and with stoic caution, Severus continued. He applied his balms to Remus’s pains with such focused, precise swipes like he could see the muscles crying underneath the skin and sought to smother them. Still without a word. The killing intent aimed at his ailments made Remus smile again.

 _What a terrible man,_ he thought with deepest affection. 

“Can I ask when you were bitten?”

“Four.” Severus grunted, surprised. 

“That’s younger than I thought.”

Around the time of the attack, Healers would reach the point of, “There’s no cure,” fairly quickly. To stall breaking his desperate parents’ hearts, they would always talk at them while they clutched their sickly child. 

_“Most children his age wouldn’t survive an attack that vicious,”_ they would say, guiltily minding their clipboards. Never that he was lucky, only that his surviving was unexpected. 

From that, he grew up imagining himself as living on borrowed time. Every day could feel like paying that time back. Hogwarts was his only reprieve.

“One moment,” Severus grumbled, readjusting his seat on Remus’s thighs, working higher to reach his arms and shoulders, his neck. Soon the wolf snickered, enjoying himself again when the potions master ever so intently sat astride his arse. 

“Careful,” he joked, finally relaxing into the brusque treatment. He was being reshaped into a proper body, coated in hand-warmed painkiller and botanic oils.

_Enough troubles._ He had a massage to enjoy. 

“Mm?” Firm thumbs worked open a knot between his shoulder blades, making him groan. “Your back is a mess.”

“Your hands are _perfect_ ,” he sighed. He pushed back against the hips pinning him down. Severus unsat himself again, this time to slide lower. He moved until he perched nearly at the backs of Remus’s knees. “Gods, I’m being tortured!”

“There’ll be none of that unless you want a divorce.”

Remus jerked around, shocked. Firstly, his pains had almost vanished—a miracle. Secondly, to see it said again, the other man looked strictly serious—arms crossed, balm-slick hands fisted, kneeling fully beside him on the bed with blank expression. 

“W—no sex?” He couldn’t have heard that right. “Is something wrong?”

Severus sat back on his own heels, Remus’s shirt riding up his naked thighs, and the sight was so unfair, the wolf turned back around to sulk. Then recalling the word “divorce,” he twisted back again.

“Are you upset with me? Was it—?”

“The last time—well, the first time we slept together,” the man said, looking over at a wall, stock still, “last night. It was before we were so _joyously_ wed. Right now, we can still have the marriage annulled.”

He let that sink in and, good mood gone, sat up solemnly to ask, “Do you want an annulment?”

Severus winced, tucking his hands in the crooks of his elbows when Remus stared openly at his wedding band. Bracing for rejection, he fiddled with his own.

“I’m only saying we’ll lose the option. Once it’s consummated, it’ll be a devil to undo.”

“But why….” He took a second to swallow around creeping bereavement. He thought Severus would want to stay. He hoped. Was it something he said? His scars? The lycanthropy? He was glad he spoke with Dumbledore for as long as he did. “If this feels forced, it’s still voidable. We can—we’ll give it—a few months, and if it’s over, it’s over. 

“Not married doesn’t mean not together,” he trailed off. 

“Married or together, what’s the difference?”

As far as Remus was concerned, marriage boiled down to a certificate in the mail. But what they had: “Because I lo—.”

He stopped. Severus snapped to attention. Now, with the amber lamps lighting the room, the newborn evening drank in their finer details and left them bare. They were stripped down to their basics and only barely dressed. Eyes, wide and sharp and glittering; and slack mouths, and glowing rings. Everything else was gentle dark. 

He felt the words still formed against his cheeks, weighty in their privacy shrunken down and flexing around them, like a rich meal in a lean stomach. 

Sterger had been so cold, cold as truth. Whatever came over them now was simmering, hot. He saw how the hare the forest gave him could just lie down and die. There was peace in the surrender, a way of dying in a forest like feeding the patient wild. 

“Because I love you,” admitted the wolf. 

Severus went boneless, arms dropping, head shaking, hands crawling over to cover his face. Remus let him fall apart, his heart hammering against his ribs like to crack them open. He held steady until his new husband folded, overwhelmed, and pitched forward to lay his covered face in his lap. 

Something hiccuped against his knees that he was too abuzz to hear, “What?”

“I said _damn you,_ ” Severus bit. His fingers left his face to curl in Remus’s clothes, as if begging. Remus absently carded through the head of dark hair, stunned and happily damned. 

  
  
  


“If you only stay because of what I tell you,” Severus warned, “I’ll cut you from eyebrow to belly. I won’t be used again, and not by you— _especially_ not.”

“I’m excited to hear it.” 

Remus tucked the blanket tighter around their nude bodies to fight the chill. Under the covers, he curled his free hand under the leg thrown over his, teasing the cleft of bottom and thigh. Severus’s legs still shook from all of the wolf’s best efforts, granting him back his smile and lazy post-coital bliss. He’d gorged on his wizard well past dinner time and into the night. 

“We were both meant to die before forty.”

Remus pushed back to see if he was serious. He was matched, stare for stare. “It said that?”

Severus nodded. “When I asked what you’d do with only five years left to live, you said you would pursue what made you happy.”

“I have more than that now, though, don’t I?” The proto- _sluagh_ shrugged. 

Remus suddenly wondered if the Slytherin’s fate made him a creature, maybe a type of banshee or manner of crone. The academics of that pulled him from the shock of having a death date somebody could know.

Currently, he’d worked said somebody into putty, which gave him a ridiculous boon of confidence in these novel times.

“I can’t guarantee that if I knew the future now, I would tell you,” Severus continued, lying down again to sleep, not that his confession was done. “I hate prophecies.”

“And Sterger is…?”

“A fact,” said with a clip.

“ _Could_ you know the future?” The wizard wrinkled his nose in distaste, then rolled over. 

“Probably, if I ever bothered. It doesn’t sound that difficult.” He yawned and settled into sleep, leaving Remus to stew on that notion for most of an hour before the Gryffindor shook him awake again. 

“Why did you tell me?,” he prompted the tousled man. 

“What?”

“The _future!”_

Severus squinted at him in the dark until, “Ah, right. Dumbledore should’ve told you, but I suspect he might’ve played coy. Like he does.”

He burrowed into the bedding, then fell into the deathly still slump he assumed for sleep. Only his mouth moved, told by the dull flash of his teeth.

“Werewolves with a human spouse can work on a license. If you’re ever discovered and have to register…”

He whispered, shocked, “I can keep teaching?”

“Hm. Or whichever…when you started, I wanted you fired, so I researched...hm. Just don’t kill anyone, or we both go to prison.” Then he reached back and slapped the wolf on the hip. “Bed.”

Obviously exhausted, Severus fell fully back asleep. Remus tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, despite his whirring mind, understanding that it’d likely been years since the man slept freely. 

* * *

November glided into the full moon fairy-free. Severus was seen gradually more as Remus appeared less, spawning a rumor that he’d poisoned the man to finally snatch the Defense position. Nobody knew that, each evening, he tended to the werewolf, massaging his aches. In the eye of all the intrigue, Severus ate suspiciously and dressed suspiciously, while in private, he lived between his rooms and Remus’s; and over a handful of days, he regained a sliver of his old indifference to mirrors. 

He far from invited them into his personal spaces. However, if he was noticed dusting his vials for the first time in months, he did it with relish and until the glass winked gold from the cauldron fires. 

The largest change Hogwarts saw was the Slytherin Head engaging in an odd behavior: socialization. He was spotted in the halls, keeping pace with Professor Burbage as she chatted about some alien, Muggle technologies. Justin Finch-Fletchley even swore he heard him quote a movie, and the other professor _giggled_.

More than once, students gossiped about the reserved Sinistra and Snape quibbling over star charts on the Tower after midnight. Any couples interested in an astronomical tryst found themselves soundly booted back to their common rooms with detention and a story to tell. 

After the incident with Severus being ill in a crowded corridor, no one was surprised to see him sidestepping Madam Pomfrey in the halls. Except that she left her infirmary at all to find him and nag about this or that potion gave the children chills.

If he wasn’t free of her, then nobody ever would be. Students were actually a great deal better about their health, to avoid his fate.

And most egregious of all in the eyes of the teenage student body was the dinner before the full, when Professor Lupin looked his absolute sickest. Positive the plague was upon him, the tables loosed a horrified gasp at Severus passing behind him like the shade of Death itself. A foreboding vision in black, he touched a thin hand on the pallid man’s shoulder and led him from the Great Hall, silently through a storm of whispers. The next morning, he was set to lead Defense himself, a cutthroat in teachers’ robes.

Severus poured himself more coffee, recovering from his late night. When he lifted the pot, whispers. When he reached for the cream and decided against it, startled gasps.

 _Idiots,_ he thought, sneering at the children gawking up at him between gulps of soggy toast. The trend these days was to pour cream over their buttered bread before eating it. _Disgusting._

A _scree!_ announced the morning post. 

_Finally, that should distract them._ He drank deeply from his mug and rolled tired eyes up to the ceiling to watch the owls fly. 

He could admit that their revival brought much needed normalcy back to the school. Aside from the Dementors that he suspected avoided him, and the threat of Black—where every day Severus prayed he stepped out of line—he played nurse, working around Remus’s shifting bones. He mostly just slathered the man in salve and batted away his wandering hands. That quickly became normal against his expectations.

That meant, however, that his public life wasn’t normal since their affair became common knowledge. Every day, he was waylaid by another professor and asked—

“How is Remus today, Severus?”

He looked down the table at Charity Burbage across their colleagues’ hitched backs. The yammering busybody smiled back

“Still among us, unfortunately,” he sniffed. 

“Yes, now that you bring him up, Charity,” Minerva chimed in. She straightened up with her teacup and saucer in hand and regarded him primly. 

“Ugh.” The old cat quirked a brow and addressed him with her terse grace.

“Officially, I know nothing.” She sipped from her breakfast blend plied with scotch, for her constitution. Then she looked at him slyly, and away again. “That being said, if you ever find yourself in need of any advice, on relationships, between the same sort…”

It was his turn to raise a brow, called from the cryptic offer by an owl landing in his beans. It squawked and presented like a Ministry sort: overfed and overconfident, with smug and stupid brown eyes.

It stuck out its leg commandingly. Severus paid it little mind. 

“Same sort of what?,” he pressed Minerva. She said a tactful bit of nothing and returned to her meal. 

“You know.” The voice came kindly and without warning. Severus considered the Headmaster, who he hadn’t spoken to personally since Halloween. 

Blue eyes winked, and Albus spoke in a stage whisper, hiding from his deputy behind a skinny hand. 

“Our chief lioness is rather knowledgeable on sudden, successful engagements. You might find a solid reference from Rolanda, for instance, regarding an escapade some eighteen years ago. I believe it was when Scotland won the Quidditch World Cup, and involved a ship captain on _his_ honeymoon.”

“Headmaster!” The Gryffindor Head dove back into a conversation she’d so quietly dismissed. “That is our _personal—_!”

“Ah! My apologies, yes. What doesn’t slip an old man’s mind, slips his lips, so they say.”

“Scree!”

Severus gave a cursory scowl at the ornery Ministry courier, plucking his mail from its leg. It puffed up and flew off immediately against the inflow of care packages from doting, faraway families. He broke the seal on the navy blue scroll and unraveled it at the table. Nobody noticed him, or so he assumed, with Albus playing the doddering old fool to the staff’s joint amusement and distress. 

There, in plain black and parchment: _Marriage Certificate,_ above the official crest for the Ministry of Magic. Details, times and dates; and his name right beside, “Remus John Lupin.”

“Lawful wedlock,” it read. “November 1st, 1993.” 

For the two witnesses, it had a most unique signature. It was from a person Severus doubted he’d ever met. It looked like a smear from a dirty paw, written with a claw or a ragged quill, and he could only make out an “M,” or “W,” before giving up. He had to assume the Ministry would accept anything as a name. 

The second signature proved rambling and so familiar, it floored. He looked to Dumbledore. The old wizard was already watching him. He nodded sagely, stroking his silver beard. 

“I believe I’ve already given my congratulations,” Albus said, “but do remind Professor Lupin of the value I feel he adds to the staff. If all goes well this year,” and he tapped his crooked nose, winking.

Severus reread the certificate, wondering if this was a trick. He knew Dumbledore approved, but to be a witness? When had he seen—?

“We’re also do for an honest talk, you and I.” The Headmaster smiled and waved at a flurry of first years stumbling past. “If you’ve a moment before your first class, I’d be honored to accompany you.” 

He could only point out, “It’s your school.”

“Today it is, yes.”

  
  
  


They took a lesser known route to the Defense classroom, where along the way, the few portraits they passed jolted awake from their dusty, generations-long naps. Some were so old, they only knew Dumbledore as the young Gryffindor he used to be, exploring their halls. Some were even older and hung high up on the walls, such that they didn’t recognize the century-old wizard at all. 

These handfuls were strange in that they paid Severus some chilly mind. One maid screamed at seeing him, but an inch of ancient varnish masked her portrait. He could barely tell when she fled her frame in fear.

“I owe you a great many apologies,” Albus said. Severus nodded him on. “I’m not sure where to begin except for the beginning. 

“I knew about the creature you described as tormenting you these last few years. I suffered under it much the same.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Albus paused. “No, I suppose I didn’t. I’m sorry I ignored your...pain.” At this, they slowed to a stop. Severus seethed, while Dumbledore frowned at the younger man’s balled fists, collecting his thoughts. 

“All this time,” he started again slowly, “I thought that, by downplaying your trials, I would only be asking for the same sufferance in grief and regret that I myself often turn to in times of crisis. I didn’t recognize what I’d forced you to confront alone. I hardly think on your sins after all this time and your great service.”

Then he turned rueful and gestured for them to keep walking. Severus didn’t move except to step back and look at all of his Headmaster at once: “Talk.”

“Yes, of course.” He bowed his head enough to beg a small pardon. Severus gave nothing and savored the other man accepting that bitter pill. “I realized after it haunted me that, despite my long since having forgiven you, I still benefit from your guilt.

“Your grief...I don’t think I’ve grasped the depth of it. Not that I’m owed that closeness in understanding, but to have used your hurt for this long...

“I’m sorry for that as well.”

They were nearing the larger veins of the castle by then. One could hear the low-rolling thunder of hundreds of students running when they oughtn't. Severus let the sound roll over him while he took in Albus and his spangled robes and sorries. Thin as aged paper and about as likely to fly off on a curious wind, but the old man had apologized and made his marriage real. He’d done more than pay a lip service.

“Why sign this?,” he probed, tapping the scroll. “What’s your game?”

“No games, Severus. I was asked to be truthful, and I truly did witness your wedding.” Albus then motioned to the end of the passageway and, having a thought, chuckled. “I admit the ceremony was a bit difficult to see through the fog, but I’m sure it was lovely.”

After which, the Headmaster sobered, and a quietude came over him, like instead of standing there with Severus in his bright and glittering robes, he wore a shroud in a wash of bleached white to moth-eaten rug. The dark wizard suddenly had a sense of something funereal in his affect. He stepped closer, concerned without meaning to be, like he’d seen the old man fall. 

“Thank you, Severus,” said Dumbledore. Excusing himself, he made to leave. 

“Oh! I nearly forgot to mention, silly me. Do keep in mind that some old acquaintances of yours still frequent the Ministry.”

Unsure of why he mentioned it, Severus acknowledged that Lucius Malfoy existed with a wave. He made his disinterest in the subject plain, and some life returned to them both. As always, Albus was amused by his spy’s rudeness. 

“Someone might notice your name on an official government document. I don’t mean any insult when I say your being married could lead to some fantastic chatter, and to someone of Remus’s past activism, it may draw attention.”

The implication finally dawned on him. “If my cover is—!”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” the Headmaster soothed. “Enjoy being a newlywed.”

“This isn’t funny! If He returns, you’ll need someone in His camp. I won’t be welcome back, if I’m tied to a known dissenter.” He quailed at what might be asked of him in order to serve. He hadn’t considered—but assuming a second war—.

Albus closed the gap to lay his hand on Severus’s arm. The spy gripped his scroll, stricken. 

“ _If_ Lord Voldemort returns,” his blue eyes hardened to steel, “we can wring our hands until our fingers break. However, and I say this with everything I have in me that isn’t ready for war—even the parts of me that are, agree— _take_ the happiness you’ve won. It isn’t promised.”

The Headmaster released him, smoothed the wrinkles from his own robe, and turned to leave, hands folded behind his back. 

“Good luck with classes today, my boy. Give Remus my best,” he called over his shoulder as he strolled back the way they’d come. 

Severus stood and watched him go, clutching his certificate like a governor’s pardon, sensing the size and complexity of Hogwarts in how it dwarfed its Headmaster in its halls. 

  
  
  


The third year Defense class heard the dizzy horror stories from the sixth years in Advanced Potions, and so a shiver went over the classroom at Professor Snape's curt announcement. 

“We’ll be having our lesson outdoors today. Anyone who complains receives a zero for participation.”

Once upon a when, he would’ve taught his first lesson on werewolves. On this day, he’d had an idea while tucked against his werewolf just last night. With his certain knack for suffering, burning with inspiration, he shook Remus off to rewrite his lesson plans for each year. By the end of the week, he intended for every student in Hogwarts to have their trial.

The children huddled together in winter cloaks, sitting cross-legged in the grass, scribbling notes in notebooks balanced on their knees. Severus rattled off every jinx and hex he knew short of anything lethal. Even with that stipulation, he lectured for half a class period every time. 

When he finally stopped, he started assigning pairs across the Houses. When each student had another in front of them, awkwardly toting their wand, he said, “One person, sit with your back facing the other. Weasley, two points for insolence. Now, using just what I’ve told you, help your partner to their feet.” 

“Sir, you’ve only told us how to hurt people?”

He gestured broadly at the nervous children. “Welcome to an evil mind. Hop to it.”

And he watched his students struggle, gloved hands tucked into his sleeves. Most failed. Some succeeded. They all finished frustrated and sad to stop, wondering where the time had gone. Eventually with each class, he sent them back to the castle, shivering from the biting autumn frost. 

He stayed in the cold after the last year was dismissed, until the last students quit their roughhousing and slipped inside. Once alone, Severus looked to the Willow waving its branches and frowned at the foxhole at its base. There were still unthinkable things at Hogwarts, he figured. Rogue elements, as it were.

Briefly, he mulled over the forest. The hide of some wild animal passed between the trees and he pondered, pushing his thin black hair behind his ears. He only pondered, considered his options before ducking indoors himself. 

He had his fill of pasts and futures as it was, and didn’t want for any more change. But what new things might speak to him on the breath of a bitter chill? If he only had himself to fear, he thought looking back at a faint parting in the trees, what would it hurt to look a little deeply, off the straight path, into the black?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Official story playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/7lf8sn8zsoqqi56iekn8gcdet/playlist/498qPrydzJ65vg9CLZutFB?si=z_4uylsNStmjP1_FXUYQyw)
> 
> Thank you all for reading! This fic has been a true joy to write because of all of you ❄️


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